Merch Trek, Part 2

This article from the February 13, 1983 Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise acts all surprised that sci-fi fans will spend money.

This blurb is from Video magazine's April 1984 issue.  From back before everything got all conglomerated, yes?

This insert from the June 17, 1984 Sunday Oklahoman proves that Trek is just good clean fun!

Above is from a trade publication to which I was privy, Convenience Store News.  It's from October 1991.

That's all the merch for now!  See you on Thursday.  Until then, BUY SOMETHING!

 

Whose Buns Are We Shooting Off?

 Here are three flashes of TREK references from the Eighties.

From the July 1981 MAD.

From the June 21, 1982 Oklahoman.

Finally, from the July 25, 1982 Sunday Oklahoman.

ANTS GOT TVS! -- to paraphrase another classic B.C. phrase.  See you Monday.

  

That Captain Guy in TV GUIDE

Fooled ya! I bet you thought I meant Shatner!

This generous spread is from the TV Guide cover-dated July 31, 1993.  If only we could all live up to Stewart's final words about facing life with curiosity!

See you Thursday.  Stay intrigued!

  

STAR TREK III on the Horizon!

By this time -- 1984 -- you could SELL stock in Mister Spock!

The above is from the February 22, 1984 USA Today.

This note, from the March 23, 1984 Tulsa World, is just a tease ... 

... As is this one, from the May 6, 1984 Oklahoman.

This is from the May 19, 1984 TV Guide.  I had no clue who Sikking was, or is.  But he certainly played the self-satisfied schmuck Captain Styles as if born to it.

See you on Monday, space campers!

  

Two Views on STAR TREK V

Both are from OKC's Oklahoman.  The first is from the June 2, 1989 issue.  I don't know where the headline is.

From a week later, the June 9 issue, we have a semi-gentle letdown review.  We must all admit that STV ain't the best.

And I agree with Davis's final statements.  I'll keep going to 'em, even if I have to grit my teeth!  How about you?

  

Spock's Alive, and We've Got Him!

Here are some articles from 1985.

Above, from January.

From the February 24, 1985 TV Guide, a mention of that week's airing on ABC of Star Trek II.

And the two-page half-height ad in the program listings.

Those of us who had watched ABC's airing of STTMP in 1983 were ready!  I had my VCR a-tapin', so I was a proud camper to see footage on my TV that waren't on the movie screen.

You can read my elucidations of footage added or removed for both films' ABC showings in this 2009 Super Blog post.

See you Monday.
  

Deep Space 9 in 1993

As you might have deduced, both of these articles are from 1993 and concern Deep Space 9.

This is from the January 3, 1993 TV News included in the OKC Oklahoman.

This cheesecake shot is from the June 19, 1993 TV Guide,

See you on Thursday, fellow stargazers!
  

Welcome Back to TREKKING WITH CLIPPINGS!

Yup, this month we'll view more of the hundred-plus articles I clipped and scanned from the Seventies to the Nineties. First off are four reviews of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, all contemporaneous with its first release. WARNING: Some ain't very nice.

This is from the December 8, 1979 Tulsa World.  When Vern Stefanic calls the ending "ridiculously hilarious," I wonder if he understood it, plotwise.

This one, from the December 11, 1979 Oklahoma City Journal, at least has an accurate headline!  Note that the reviewer refers to Roddenberry's novelization ... although I do not think that the Great Bird described Ilia and Decker as "involved in psychic phenomena."  Even though they definitely share that kind of emotional connection!

This one was printed in February 1980 in some periodical available in OKC, but "Films in Review" is the name of the column, not the rag that printed it.  Oops!  PS It's interesting that the reviewer, Tom Rogers, says he "read the script beforehand" and was disappointed with the finished flick.

Since the script wasn't even finished when it was filmed, I wonder what Rogers read?  No wonder he was disappointed!  Although calling the movie "garbage" is fightin' words, bub!

This is from a magazine called New York, dated February 11, 1980.  Accuracy aside, you gotta love the mention of Spock's drag-queen-satanic eyebrows!

See you Monday for more TREKKING WITH CLIPPINGS!

  

We Miss G. Ailard S. Artain!

It's been just over a year since the departure of my favorite madman, Gailard Sartain, aka the Incredible Doctor Mazeppa Pompazoidi. Here are some scans from the Tulsa World anent that sad occasion.

The above is from the June 21, 2025 World.

The above is from the June 29, 2025 World.

You can check out the search term "March Mazeppa Madness" on this blog's home page to see dozens of clippings from my own obsession with this wacky genius.

See you on Thursday to begin a month of TREKKING WITH CLIPPINGS!

  

Book Review - THE SUPERMAN WARS - by William Bernhardt

 

            This grand 2026 book is subtitled “A Battle for Truth, Justice, and an American Icon.”  The author, William Bernhardt, is a writer of several series of legal thrillers.  They’re always a fun read.  And extra credit because he’s an Oklahoman.

            This book is focused on Jerry Siegel, the writer half of the Siegel-Shuster team who created Superman and generated millions (maybe billions?) of dollars for almost everyone but themselves.

            Bernhardt does a good job of depicting the impoverished existence of sub-working-class children of immigrants to our country.  This was a world of neighborhood stores and craftspeople of the servant class, working to improve the prospects of their children.

            The author uses his tale-telling abilities to narrate the experiences of the young men who created the ultimate American hero.  It\s really depressing to read about the ongoing exploitation of their talent by all the various incarnations of DC and the men who ran them.  (The fact that such exploitation by those in power happens every day does not excuse it.)

            Joe Shuster is not shirked in the telling, but Jerry is in the spotlight throughout.

            In an afterword, Bernhardt ventures the opinions of a couple of psych/behavioral experts anent Jerry Siegel.  They point out that a lot of Jerry’s life exemplifies someone with hypomania or manic mood swings.  What achievements Siegel reached!—only to sign Superman away (more than once).

            The several legal imbroglios involving Jerry-and-Joe versus DC (and Jerry solo) show the dismal state of creators’ rights and corporate behavior.  Kudos to Neal Adams and others who motivated fans to shame DC into providing Joe and Jerry with medical coverage and pensions in the 1970s.

            I learned lots of things that THIS Super Fan did not know, including an early origin story for Superman which sent him to twentieth-century America from the future, not from another planet.

            The Superman Wars of the title are covered up until the 2025 film, with many backs-and-forths in courtroom and in the public eye.

            It’s gratifying to read the acknowledgments and see all the people Bernhardt contacted.  It’s like a Who’s Who of super folks, like Swan, Adams, the Siegel family, Carlin, Uslan, Maggin, and many more.

            This is a fine book with a splash of photos and art spread throughout.  If you love Superman, you’ll like it.  My only wish is that it were about half again as long and covered Joe Shuster’s side of the story in more depth.

            Read this book and enjoy some gosh-wows, and some deep compassion for how a couple of guys from Cleveland were swallowed alive by corporate greed.

            PS I was thrilled to meet Bill Bernhardt as a co-panelist at Soonercon 34, June 19-21, 2026.  He was kind enough to sign my copy of The Superman Wars.

            We participated in a panel called “The Golden Age of Sci-Fi: What Makes Classic Stories Endure?”

     

            In this photo, left-to-right:  Bill Bernhardt, Steven Southard, Frank Hood, and me.

See you Monday!

  

WATCHMEN's Ever-Full Moon, Part 2

Part 1 here.

 THE EVER-FULL MOON

PART THE SECOND

            To quote Andy Rooney, “Did you ever notice ...”

            ... that in Watchmen, the moon is always full?

THE LUNAR LAGNIAPPE

            The moon is always full, even when its depiction is not part of the current storyline!

            Whenever the moon appears within the Tales of the Black Freighter comic being read by Bernie, it’s full.

            It’s full as the narrator eats shark (5:21).  Follow the arrow from a small version of the Black Freighter panel, to a larger one in which the full moon is obscured by the sailor’s narration “balloon.”

 

          And it’s full as he arrives at Davidstown (10:23)...

.. and as he leaves Davidstown for Black Freighter (11:13

           The moon’s even full in the “Nostalgia” TV commercial (7:13)!

A FULL WATCH-MOON

             True to Zack Snyder’s slavish channeling of the comic, the 2009 Watchmen movie similarly featured an ever-full moon.

            You can easily identify the story spots for the above three frame grabs.  Blake goes airborne at 05:00, Rorschach comes in at 13:10, and this view of the Black Freighter comic is from 26:26.

            At 1:54:23, the moon was full in Kovacs’s flashback to the night he solved the Claire Roche case.

            This shot is seen as Nite Owl and Silk Spectre 2 swoop in Archie to aid the tenement-fire victims, at 2:15:28.

            There’s a cross-voiceover from President Nixon, “Take Us to Defcon 1,” at 2:39:54, as Nite Owl and Rorschach search Veidt’s offices.

            Just as seen in the comic,  the moon is full as the once-marooned sailor rides into Davidstown and avoids “the pirate sentry,”  at 2:47:14

            In the third and final phase of our Lunar Survey, we’ll try to figure out a reason – any at all – for the wild fulness!

See you on Thursday some other wild madness!