Star Trek: New Visions by John Byrne

[Earth 2 Chris]

Cindy and I discuss two issues of Byrne's new Star Trek photo-comics on the latest Super Mates. It's about as close as you'll ever get to a "new" episode of classic Trek...but are they any good?

Giver her a listen and find out!

http://supermatescomic.blogspot.com/

Chris

[mego73]

The new one that just came out involves Harry Mudd, Captain Tracey, Koloth and Kor. I thought it was really good!

[Earth 2 Chris]

Oooh...I really need to get to the comic shop. That should be waiting for me. Thanks for the head's up!

Chris

[Earth 2 Chris]

^I'm curious, what did you find so awful about them? There are a few hiccups here and there, but as a guy who uses Photoshop everyday, I thought they were pretty well done, overall.

[mego73]

With the volume of Photoshop he has to do, I am not expecting perfection in every panel. It's just like conventional comic art, some panels look rough. This new issue with Harry Mudd is really fun though.

[Earth 2 Chris]

They just looked like a novice did them. The Time's echo one had those awful decedents. The Al-x robot etc. The added crewmen with heads too big and looked like someone look an I phone pic of a co worker and attached. I mean just look at the cover in your 1st post. IMHO

That image up top that I posted was the "cover" of the podcast episode covering these. I did a quick job to make it look like the old TOS VHS tapes.

My only real gripe from the books I have is the rat creatures from the first book. I thought everything else was handled pretty well. This is a herculean task for a full-size comic. I don't really see how he could have done much better and kept a decent schedule.

Chris

[johnmiic]

I bought the collected edition of The Mirror Cracked. I found it pretty tedious and again, we have to revisit the Mirror, Mirror concept? Most of the photoshop was pretty good but there were some that just didn't hold up to snuff. There's a shot of Scotty exiting the Bridge turbolift which doesn't look quite right. Some shots of Kyle seem over-colored in the transporter room. Just hiccups really but the story was not too good.

[thunderbolt]

can Byrne still draw? I know he's burnt a lo of bridges, but I liked his art and followed him thru Wonder Woman, then kind of lost interest. I would rather see him doing new artwork than playing at making photo funnies.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^He's done quite a few traditionally drawn Trek projects for IDW recently.

Chris

[UnderdogDJLSW]

He wrote a forward in which he expressed his joy at reading the fotonovels. I think these issues are meant to be that.

It is a neat project, but I do have to agree a bit that the stories, while interesting, are not quite reading in the characters voices for me whether be photos or drawn, etc.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I've only read the two we covered in the podcast, "Strange New Worlds" and "Times' Echo", but I thought he nailed the voices in those, myself. The only thing that pulled me out was when the characters first names (Nyota, "Pav" for Pavel) were used, which they weren't in the actual series.

Chris

[rchatlin]

I'm guessing Byrne was unable to secure likeness rights for Roger C Carmel,
since he never show's Mudd's face.

r
o
b

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Carmel's face is also unseen in the Batman/Green Hornet series. Colonel Gumm gets a facefull of his own epoxy, and voila...no need to worry about that difficult likeness.

Chris

[mego73]

You know, it never hit me that they were avoiding showing Carmel's likeness. In think it was because of him flashing back to before he was transformed and it was from his point of view.

I can't understand why the current holders of Carmel's estate would want to make use of his likeness difficult.

[johnmiic]

can Byrne still draw? I know he's burnt a lo of bridges, but I liked his art and followed him thru Wonder Woman, then kind of lost interest. I would rather see him doing new artwork than playing at making photo funnies.

There's a collection out right now for 39.99 which says these are the titles he's done in recent years:

http://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=24291597

Star Trek Assignment Earth (2008) #1-5
Star Trek Crew (2009 IDW) #1-5
Star Trek Leonard McCoy Frontier Doctor (2010 IDW) #1-4
Star Trek: Alien Spotlight - Romulans (2008)
Star Trek: Romulans - Schism (2009 IDW) #1-3
Star Trek: Romulans - Hollow Crown (2008) #1-2

Assignment Earth, Crew and Frontier Doctor seem to give Byrne the most room to play in the Trek Universe because they don't take place in the regular continuity. So he can change details and draw things differently. Events in the Alien Spotlights spill over into the Crew mini-series, (as well as 1 issue of Assignment Earth).