New Visions While Waiting
Jun. 29th, 2018 08:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerOne recent item jumped out at me from the usual flow of reports on the Anime News Network, at first glance an unexpected stretch in what the site covers. There've been connections between the Transformers and Japan from the very beginning, of course, but I don't remember the site taking that much interest in them. Star Trek would seem that much further afield. Even so, though, the report the comic book company that now holds the license for both Transformers and Star Trek comics would be publishing a crossover between those two franchises did amuse me, in a way that cut through my usual thoughts of "I know about them; I'd just rather spend what time I have now on other things than trying to follow their modern flow of product." (Certainly, if not for that single unusual excursion, it might have been a while before I'd taken another look at the "Star Trek news" or "Transformers information" sites I do know about, when the bit of news might already have been buried in their own flow of reports.)
I admit I'd never quite thought of "Star Trek meets the Transformers" before. "Commercial crossovers" doubtless depend more on corporate dealings than sudden flashes of creative imagination. (Two decades ago, I read a MSTing of an official "Star Trek the Next Generation meets the X-Men" comic, which treated the whole matter with comedic disbelief and contempt.) Still, the thought somehow "worked" for me to begin with. It might have taken an extra moment to get past my first amusement and realise the artwork in the preview covers was drawing on the Star Trek animated series of the 1970s, which I'd watched all the way through on Netflix not that long ago. The original cast providing the voices might have made it feel "closer" to the original series than comics or novels might for me (in a similar way, perhaps, to how the Clone Wars computer-animated series being "in motion" let it sneak up on me even after developing a cautious distance from the novels and comics of the Star Wars Expanded Universe), and in a certain way I could suppose it had remained obscure enough for my reactions to be a bit freer than they might have been for any of the live-action series. At the same time, though, I was always conscious of the limitations of 1970s American animation (technically and story-wise) in constant contrast to what scope it could offer. Still, I'd watched it. The cover artwork was also drawing on the style of the original Transformers cartoon; I'd eventually got DVDs of its first episodes only to be struck by a sense of "primitive plotting," and while some time after that I did buy at a considerable discount a box set including the later episodes I haven't made the time to watch any of them. Being aware of that might have given me a little extra push towards contemplating that while this comic may promise to draw on two "animated series," when those old series were being animated the comics also being published were going in their own directions, years before insistences on consistency in "licensed product," years more perhaps before keeping that product flowing might have allowed for diverging takes on things. I've seen enough of the Gold Key Star Trek comics to understand how at the most generous they're seen as "eccentric"; some of the stylistic divergences of the Marvel Transformers comics have stuck with me given I stuck with them through their run, but I can also suppose they had a certain "just plug the product" gloominess at times too.
In at least being curious about this upcoming crossover where I'd been aware of a "Star Trek meets Planet of the Apes" comic but not taken any further interest in it, I did get to wondering about a particular iPad application my local library offers that lets me download a set number of electronic comics a month. I took a first look at its comics from IDW, and then I noticed a particular Star Trek series I'd at least heard about before. "Star Trek New Visions" is a photocomposite work "drawing" on the original series, and I decided to try and read some of it before settling into the long wait for the chance of the crossover turning up on the service. In its own way, using photos from the original series gave it a different sort of "closeness" to that central text than that of the animated series; I've grown conscious, though, that even with a peculiar yet acceptable sense of resonance to the computer graphics of adventure games from the 1990s to some of its art, having to use those photos can make it feel like it's forever revisiting familiar guest characters in an ultimately derivative way. So far as the upcoming crossover goes anyway, in not turning up my nose at it at once I do have to keep my expectations from running away on me to the point of demanding profundity.
I admit I'd never quite thought of "Star Trek meets the Transformers" before. "Commercial crossovers" doubtless depend more on corporate dealings than sudden flashes of creative imagination. (Two decades ago, I read a MSTing of an official "Star Trek the Next Generation meets the X-Men" comic, which treated the whole matter with comedic disbelief and contempt.) Still, the thought somehow "worked" for me to begin with. It might have taken an extra moment to get past my first amusement and realise the artwork in the preview covers was drawing on the Star Trek animated series of the 1970s, which I'd watched all the way through on Netflix not that long ago. The original cast providing the voices might have made it feel "closer" to the original series than comics or novels might for me (in a similar way, perhaps, to how the Clone Wars computer-animated series being "in motion" let it sneak up on me even after developing a cautious distance from the novels and comics of the Star Wars Expanded Universe), and in a certain way I could suppose it had remained obscure enough for my reactions to be a bit freer than they might have been for any of the live-action series. At the same time, though, I was always conscious of the limitations of 1970s American animation (technically and story-wise) in constant contrast to what scope it could offer. Still, I'd watched it. The cover artwork was also drawing on the style of the original Transformers cartoon; I'd eventually got DVDs of its first episodes only to be struck by a sense of "primitive plotting," and while some time after that I did buy at a considerable discount a box set including the later episodes I haven't made the time to watch any of them. Being aware of that might have given me a little extra push towards contemplating that while this comic may promise to draw on two "animated series," when those old series were being animated the comics also being published were going in their own directions, years before insistences on consistency in "licensed product," years more perhaps before keeping that product flowing might have allowed for diverging takes on things. I've seen enough of the Gold Key Star Trek comics to understand how at the most generous they're seen as "eccentric"; some of the stylistic divergences of the Marvel Transformers comics have stuck with me given I stuck with them through their run, but I can also suppose they had a certain "just plug the product" gloominess at times too.
In at least being curious about this upcoming crossover where I'd been aware of a "Star Trek meets Planet of the Apes" comic but not taken any further interest in it, I did get to wondering about a particular iPad application my local library offers that lets me download a set number of electronic comics a month. I took a first look at its comics from IDW, and then I noticed a particular Star Trek series I'd at least heard about before. "Star Trek New Visions" is a photocomposite work "drawing" on the original series, and I decided to try and read some of it before settling into the long wait for the chance of the crossover turning up on the service. In its own way, using photos from the original series gave it a different sort of "closeness" to that central text than that of the animated series; I've grown conscious, though, that even with a peculiar yet acceptable sense of resonance to the computer graphics of adventure games from the 1990s to some of its art, having to use those photos can make it feel like it's forever revisiting familiar guest characters in an ultimately derivative way. So far as the upcoming crossover goes anyway, in not turning up my nose at it at once I do have to keep my expectations from running away on me to the point of demanding profundity.