I was pleased and honored to be involved with this.
Fifty five years ago today, Star Trek premiered, changing popular culture forever.
Created by Gene Roddenberry,Trek introduced the crew of the Starship Enterprise; Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) and James Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (James Doohan). The Enterprise explored space, the final frontier for three seasons and sixty nine episodes, followed by two seasons and twenty two episodes of animated advenures, and eventually six feature films with the original cast, the mission remained the same, “explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.” In 2009, Paramount recast the crew with younger actors who teamed up for three feature films.
Today, we’re celebrating the legacy of the Original Series with several people who’s life and careers have been influenced by the series.
I’d like to personally tribute today’s discussion to Bjo Trimble, who with her husband, John, were responsible for not only leading the “Save Star Trek” campaign, but also were instrumental in helping establish science fiction fan conventions. Bjo is also the author of the Star Trek Concordance and her memoir, On the Good Ship Enterprise: My 15 Years with Star Trek.
Bjo enthusiastically wanted to be a part of this, but is dealing with some health issues and wasn’t able to participate. Bjo, we wish you could be here; live long and prosper.
I’d like to introduce the participants and the discussion will span over several pages.
Please enjoy and share with fellow Trekkies/Trekkers/sci-fi/pop culture fans!
Meet The Players:
- Stefan Blitz, editor-in-chief of Forces of Geek; your moderator
- John Trimble, with wife Bjo, was instrumental in both early science fiction conventions and the original “Save Star Trek Campaign”
- Ian Spelling: veteran journalist and entertainment writer who has written hundreds, probably thousands of Star Trek – related features for magazines, websites, and newspapers. He served as the editor of StarTrek.com from 2010 to 2019; has moderated panels at numerous Star Trek events; and co-authored The Making of Star Trek: First Contact and co-author of Star Trek – The Original Series: A Celebration.
- Peter Briggs, film and television screenwriter and comic book author, best known for Hellboy (2004) with Guillermo del Toro andhigh-profile unproduced films including The Hunt: Alien vs. Predator, Freddy vs. Jason, Judge Dredd, Panzer 88 (with Aaron Mason), and Silverlance (featured in Josh Hull’s new book “Underexposed: The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made)
- Jeff Bond, journalist, author of The Art of Star Trek: The Kelvin Timeline and The Music of Star Trek;co-author of Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Art and Visual Effects.
- Rich Handley, writer/editor for a number of genre properties through such publishers as DC Comics, BOOM! Studios, Dark Horse Comics, IDW, Titan Books, Sequart, and ATB Publishing; former reporter and columnist for Star Trek Communicator magazine; served as the editor of Eaglemoss’sStar Trek Graphic Novel Collection (which ran for 150 in total) and still writes a weekly Star Trek column for its HeroCollector website.
- Larry Young, writer/publisher/columnist; co-publisher of indie comics company AIT/PlanetLar; writer of their flagship title: Astronauts in Trouble. Writer of the MTV Big Picture Special Edition: The Star Trek Logs with Marina Sirtis
- Bill Cunningham, Publisher, Pulp 2.0 Press
- John E. Price, PhD, academic and cultural critic. Life-long /Trekkie. Editor at New Directions in Folklore, award-winning researcher on fan studies and popular culture lore.
- Carol Pinchefsky, freelance writer of geek culture, technology, science, and business. Her book on the business of geek culture will be out in Q1 2022.
- Steven Thompson, pop culture writer/editor/researcher; author of The Best of Booksteve’s Libraryand co-author of Run, Holly, Run!: A Memoir by Holly from 1970s TV Classic “Land of the Lost”.
- Bob Greenberger, writer/editor for various magazines including Starlog, Comics Scene, Famous Monsters and Weekly World News. He also held editorial positions at both Marvel and DC Comics, which inclded an eight year run editing DC’s Star Trek comic. In addition he’s written/edited/contributed to over 100 books, with almost two dozen Trek related books including Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History.
- John Kirk, Freelance journalist, hosts celebrity panels for FanExpo and regular contributor to Pop Mythology; has written about Trek for 1701news, WhatCulture, GeekFeed and Den of Geek. Contributes to Star Wars Insider and Back Issue Magazine.
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