Star Trek Comic Book by Gold Key

As early as 1967, Star Trek was available as a comic book for readers to enjoy further adventures of Kirk, Spock, and the gang, thanks to Gold Key, the publishers of several other licensed properties such as Dark Shadows and Lost In Space. The series seemed to be tailor- made for comic readers, what with its heroic characters, exotic locales, spaceships, and weird alien monsters.

Unfortunately, the writers of the comic series never threw themselves into their work the way that writers for the TV show did - and the TV writers included such luminaries as Harlan Ellison and D. C. Fontana. Paul S. Newman, Arnold Drake, and Geoge Kashdan were the primary writers for the comic, and their choices of stories and situations were largely unimaginative, especially given that the comic book could presumably take the Enterprise crew to places that the TV show could not, since there was no concern for special effects budgets. The characters were well-delineated thanks to the show, but the comic scripters didn't have (or didn't think they had) the freedom to explore the personalities of the characters beyond whatever the individual plots required.

The book was drawn by Nevio Zeccara in the beginning, soon to be followed by Alberto Giolitti and later Al McWilliams. The artwork was competent enough, but like most Gold Key titles (especially their licensed properties), lacked any real inspiration beyond what was barely necessary to keep the book going. Reportedly, Giolitti, who drew some three years' worth of issues, never even saw the show while he was drawing the book! Journeyman artwork, unfortunately, was expected by most readers of Gold Key titles.

At least the covers were good - while issues #1 through #9 were photos or photo montages, the remainder of the book's covers were painted art, a newsstand plus that Gold Key employed on many of its titles, which the other main publishers like Marvel and DC never attempted. (An exception is #60, which featured colored line art - a brief experiment by Gold Key on most of its titles during the 1970's which yielded poor results.)

Star Trek lasted 61 issues, from July 1967 to March 1979. Individual stories were reprinted in collected books called Enterprise Logs 1 through 4, 1976-77, by Golden Press.