Wonky Enterprises in 70's toy art

[mego73]

One of the charming things about toy art for Star Trek stuff in the 1970's is that the Enterprise was rarely ever screen accurate.

But sometimes, depictions of the Enterprise really went off the deep end.

Hasbro Star Trek Game, French Version 1974 (bb4) - eBay (item 310178643407 end time Nov-30-09 11:51:29 PST)

TV21 BRITISH ANNUAL 1973 IPC FLEETWAY STAR TREK - eBay (item 200391718074 end time Nov-05-09 09:17:44 PST)

even the promo art for Filmation Trek used for newspaper TV guides had a wonky Enterprise

1973 Baltimore TV Channels Magazine-Star Trek:Animated - eBay (item 290239873706 end time Nov-10-09 18:24:58 PST)

[Captain]

Some of the worst artistic renders of the Enterprise I've ever seen was in the pages of Marvels Star Trek comic from the early eighties. I dont think any of the artists who worked on that series could draw the ship...especially Gil Kane! I could draw a better NCC-1701 in elementary school than the monstrosity he doodled. Kinda shocked me at the time that an established artist like Gil turned that in. Maybe he thought the inker would fix it?

[wyldpny]

Wonky? Is that Andorian for Screwy?

[Mikey]

Not as bad as the examples above, but I used to have many of the Blish novels and this artwork always bugged me ... The actually novel of mine was on Star Trek 10

What's that extra deck in front of the secondary hull saucer pylon ?
Is that the famed bowling alley ?

http://www.rubyhightops.com/pic24/tr...sh-reader4.jpg

m

[Meule]

Funky colors on the TV21 British annual from 1973

[HardyGirl]

Kinda looks like the art on Star Trek Colorforms.

[palitoy]

Off model stuff like this is what excites me as a toy collector, once style guides came in, toys became very bland.

[wyldpny]

I agree with Palitoy. The early art of the 70's Trek toys gave them a unique early sci-fi look, almost a fantasy feel which made them even more collectible to me.
When I was shooting images of my large Trek collection for my book, I got to enjoy and geek out over all of these early Trek art pieces again as I shot literally hundreds of these items.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Yeah, style guides basically suck. The off-model art is fun to look at and discuss, and there is occasionally a truly great package design that shines through, with a totally different perspective. Not going to happen with rigid style guides.

Chris