YEAR: 2056

"Forgiveness"
Stardate: not applicable
Comic: Star Trek: The Next Generation – Forgiveness
Publisher: Wildstorm
Date: October 2001

Synopsis:

Writer: David Brin / Artist: Scott Hampton

In the mid 21st century Dr Colin Blakeney makes significant strides in perfecting transporter technology until his lab is sabotaged during the first attempts at human transport. Trapped in a transport beam for over 300 year Blakeney will eventually be recovered by the crew of the Enterprise-E.

NEXT POST: 2063

—————
NOTES:
(1) This timeline covers Star Trek comics published in the USA and UK between 1967 to 2007 (i.e. from Gold Key to TokyoPop) – it does not include any stories from current Star Trek comics publisher IDW.
(2) See below for the Time Line Introduction explaining the background, definitions and considerations for this Star Trek Comics Time Line project.
(3) For more information on the history of Star Trek in comics check out my book STAR TREK: A Comics History. now available in stores.

YEAR: 1953

When the Stars Come A-Calling
Stardate: Not Applicable
Comic: Star Trek Special
Publisher: DC/Wildstorm
Date: 2001

Synopsis:

Writer: Ben Raab / Artist: John Lucas

Benny Russell, the 1950s SF writer that Capatin Sisko often sees himself as during his Prophet driven visions, continues to be turned away from publishers, not because of his talent, but because of his skin color. Later Russell is attacked by what appears to be a gang of Klingons, sees adverts for Quarks bar, mentions of the Borg, and sees aliens everywhere. Using these visions as inspiration Benny writes a new selection of stories and is accepted for publication in Incredible Tales magazine.

NEXT POST: 2056

—————
NOTES:
(1) This timeline covers Star Trek comics published in the USA and UK between 1967 to 2007 (i.e. from Gold Key to TokyoPop) – it does not include any stories from current Star Trek comics publisher IDW.
(2) Check previous post for the Time Line Introduction explaining the background, definitions and considerations for this Star Trek Comics Time Line project.
(3) For more information on the history of Star Trek in comics check out my book STAR TREK: A Comics History. now available in stores.[u]

In the early stages of writing STAR TREK: A Comics History I started to keep a note of the various stardates attached to different stories. Initially this was just meant to be a guide for myself to help in the research process; but I soon realized that a full time line of the various Star Trek comics trying to put the stories into some sort of chronological order might make a great addition to the book and would be a fun project.

A little research showed that a few people had made starts at such a project over the years, and at one point the Star Trek comics published by DC Comics included their own time line, putting their stories in order.

As the work on the book progressed I took more and more notes, and with the aid of my wife Gill, made an attempt at compiling what I felt was the first comprehensive Star Trek comics time line covering all the comics issued between 1967 and 2007 (i.e. from Gold Key to TokyoPop).

Unfortunately while the completed timeline was in the final draft submitted, it had to be dropped from the final printed version of the book due to space and cost limitations (adding the time line section would have meant adding more pages than had already been allocated, with a subsequent increase in cover price – not something we wanted to do.)

But rather than just have that work sit on my laptop hard drive I have decided to present it here on my blog over the coming weeks and months.

And as I don’t have any print space restrictions I’ll be presenting an expanded version with cover art and synopsis of key stories.

To kick things off here’s the Introduction to the timeline section as it would have appeared in the book.

===================

STAR TREK COMICS – A Time Line

Introduction

Given that almost every Star Trek story opens with a narrated Captain’s Log entry with an associated Stardate, it seems natural to try to put the various stories into some sort of chronological sequence. At first it would seem that the most logical way to do that would be to order the various adventures by the given Stardate. However, many of the published stories have no corresponding Stardate attached, and those that do use inconsitent methods. The problem is further complicated by the fact that even the official Stardate convention is confusing and inconsistent (see below for more on Stardates).

Since we know that most of the Star Trek stories take place in the 23rd and 24th centuries, the next obvious approach would be to list the stories in chronoligcal order based on conventional dates—in effect, to build a timeline. A timeline for the Star Trek prose novels has already been published in the excellent Voyages of the Imagination, and several of the people behind that project have made inroads into combining some of the comics stories into that timeline. In this chapter we have published what we hope is the first comphrensive timelime of Star Trek comics series, combining the stories from all the publishers listed in the previous chapters. The time line is based on chronological dates and, as far as possible, fitting the stories in with known established points in the history of the Star Trek universe. Of course with any fictional universe with input form a large number of creators inconsitencies are inevitable.

Stardates

The official definition of a Stardate is that it is intended to be a comprehensive calendar system used across the United Federation of Planets. Some other races and intergalactic organizations have also adopted the Stardate system. The system is designed to provide a unifed way of expressing time between locations which may be light-years apart and onboard ships that travel at relativistic speeds.

From a practical storytelling perspective, no one has ever officially (i.e. on screen) explained just how the system works. Stardates are simply made up by the creators of the TV shows, movies, novels and comics.

Bob Greenberger explained that in the early days of his tenure as editor of the Star Trek books at DC Comics the creative teams “did what we could to follow the lead of the film or episodes depending upon where our stories fell.” As a back up they used previously published sources if possible. Howard Weinstein concurred: “hey had to fit in with what the TV shows and movies established. “Once I decided where my stories fit into the TREK timeline, I’d base my stardates on ‘official’ dates used in the TV episodes and films.”

In ST:TOS, Stardates were generally four digits long. When ST:TNG aired, the show’s producers settled on a five-digit standard. The first digit was a 4 (because the show was set in the 24th century), the second digit signified which season of the show the episode was from, and the remaining digits increased as the season progressed. So a Stardate of 42002.9 would be early in the second season of ST:TNG, while a Stardate of 45998.2 would be late in the fifth season. The ST:TNG format was also carried over to ST:DS9 and ST:VOY.

In the main body of the book, I have quoted various Stardates exactly as they appeared in print in the original stories. However, for purposes of indexing, I have converted them to a standard four- or five-digit date followed by a decimal. For instance, in issue #10 of the Gold Key series, the Stardate is given as 12:48.6, while in the sixth UK story arc the Stardate is shown as 48.12.46. In this list they are shown as 1248.6. and 4812.46, respectively.

If a story has more than two Stardates shown, I have tried to use the Stardate in which the majority of the action occurs. If the story uses flashbacks, I have used the Stardate when the story starts.

Stories Listed Chronologically (Timeline)

Constructing an accurate calendar-based timeline for the Star Trek comics will be an ongoing process. Presented here is an initial attempt. The following criteria have been used in developing this timeline.

Where possible, events have been assigned a calendar date (or an approximate range of dates) based on references to other events where dates have already been established, continuity considerations, visual clues such as uniform styles, crew rosters, and the like.

This timeline was compiled by Alan J. Porter and Gillian J. Porter, building on work previously done by Bob Greenberger, Win Scott Eckert, and James McCain. (Off course any errors, omissions, bad guesses and outright mistakes are totally mine, and corrections, suggestions are welcome.)

====================

The first Star Trek Comics Timeline entry will be posted soon.

I must admit I’d never heard of FenCon, the Dallas based fan-run convention, until this year’s ArmadilloCon where I ended up sitting on a Doctor Who panel with one of the FenCon organizers. After we had verbally spared for a while about various aspects of the British Time Traveler’s 45 year existence, he suggested that I might enjoy a visit to FenCon later in the year.

Checking out the guest list and schedule, I decided to give it a try, and I’m glad I did.

FenCon seems to be a unique mixture of science fiction, hard science, media and music, and was easily one of the best organized and most enthusiastically supported cons I’ve been to in a while. From what I heard I believe that attendance was the best ever this year at something around 750 people. Certainly the con areas of the hotel seemed to be constantly busy and most panels and events were well attended.

I was highly impressed with the con event organizers who worked with me to make sure I got on the panels that interested me the most and that my schedule was spaced out enough for me to enjoy some of the other events, and even grab the occasional meal.

Over the three days I participated on panels on subjects as diverse as ePublishing & The Kindle, the Future of Manned Space Flight (where I shared the podium with a couple of NASA rocket scientists – very cool), Writing Media Tie-Ins (photo below), Torchwood, and Doctor Who. The later being a little intimidating as Doctor Who TV screen writer, Paul Cornell was sat in the audience.

Talking of Paul, one of the highlights of the weekend, was appearing as a contestant on his “Just A Minute” game show panel – in which he does a SF/F spin on the venerable BBC radio show.

Everyone at FenCon was very friendly and welcoming (well except from one lady at the Kindle panel who didn’t like my statement that we are moving away from a text based society to a more graphical and visual based one). It was great to see a few familiar faces from ArmadilloCon, but for me the over-riding memory of this Con will be of meeting and getting to know new friends such as Paul Cornell, writer and TV critic Candace Havens, media tie-in writer / editor Keith DeCandido, novelist Stephen Patrick, and more.

I think FenCon will be on my list of ‘must do’ conventions each year now – and seeing the guest list for next year’s event, it should be another great one.

(Cross-posted from my Live Journal blog)

As usual I had a great time at this year’s Armadillocon, hanging out with friends and meeting some interesting new people. On the whole the panels I attended were fun and provoked some good discussions and thoughts.

Having said that there were a couple of things I noticed on a few panels that, if not exactly spoiled the panel, certainly detracted from the experience.

– At at last three panels the moderator had done zero preparation, which left it to one or more of the panelists to jump in and keep things moving. Personally I find that unacceptable and very unprofessional, if you check the box on the form that you are prepared to moderate a panel, then if selected you should do at least some basic prep work, like know who is on your panel and have some questions on the subject ready.

– Panelists who would dominate the panel, but not in a good way. I don’t have a problem with someone dominating the panel if the other panelists are not responding, but panelists who will interrupt others answers or talk over people just to make their voice heard, really bug me. Luckily didn’t happen on any of the panels I was on, but I did see it in a couple I attended. (And worst, the moderators just let it keep happening.)

But those few notes aside, I felt this year’s con was very well run and on the whole the scheduling worked out well.

From a personal perspective the events I participated in seemed to go well and be, on the whole, well received.

– I had a 300% increase in people at my Reading this year. – Well OK I had six people turn up, rather than the two from last year. The good part was that there were all strangers, it wasn’t a "pity audience" of friends, but folks who had decided to waste 30 minutes of their Friday night listening to me stumble through one of my stories. They all gave great feedback on the story, and even suggested some good ideas to incorporate in my planned rewrite.

– The Blogging and Podcasting panel provoked some interesting discussions about various types of social media and how writers can use them. – The "Promoting Your Work" panel I attended immediately afterwards soon fell into similar discussions and topics, – so perhaps those two panels could have been combined into one.

– Moderating the Star Trek panel was a lot of fun, and I had a good panel, and great audience interaction. I believe we were at "standing room only" status for that one. The room certainly seemed packed. The most talked about moment from that panel was when a guy in the audience prefaced his question by starting to give a detailed description of, and even quote from, a Star Trek porno movie!! Luckily we managed to divert the conversation back to the new Trek movie, because who knows where that may have gone!

– I was a little worried that I may have dominated the Dr. Who panel later that evening, but as the token Brit and the one with the life-time experience of Who, it seemed that most of the questions ended up coming back to me. In fact I had to make a conscious effort at one point to put the microphone down so others would answer. And I think that the folks at Big Finish Audio owe me a commission check for the amount of times I plugged the Dr. Who audio dramas. The IDW Dr. Who comics got a few mentions too.

– Sunday’s Graphic Novels panel was pretty much a continuation of any lunch time, or bar discussion that happens when a bunch of Austin based comics creators gets together, except this time instead of being sat around a table, we were in a straight line behind the table with an audience in front of us. I could say it was just like chatting with my mates, but it wasn’t "just like that, " it WAS that.

Didn’t spend as much time in the bar this year, however I did sell a copy of my James Bond book while in the bar. Not to an Armadillocon attendee, but to a Bond fan who was just hanging out in the bar having a drink with friends and family.

The weekend seemed to flash by this year, and I’m looking forward to next year’s event.

Although they don’t officially ship to bookstores for a few more weeks, I will have advance copies of both STAR TREK: A Comics History and TIME TUNNEL: THE Complete Series with me at Armadillocon this weekend if anyone wants to take a look at them.

If you can’t make it to DilloCon – I’ve posted a few shots of the books’ interiors over on my Live Journal. You can check out the STAR TERK book here, and the TIME TUNNEL here.

And in totally unrelated news, I just saw that WIRED Magazine did a profile of the BOOM! Kids comics line. – It’s very cool that the hard work being put into that line is getting such mainstream press.
You can read the article here. (And yes, CARS does get a passing mention.)

The weekend of August 14th-16th is one of my favorite events of the year – ArmadilloCon, the literary SF convention held right here in Austin, TX. Simply one of the friendliest and best run events on the circuit.

This year I’ll be participating in a few panels, signing and doing a reading.

Here’s how my weekend schedule looks:

Friday, August 14th
10:00pm – 10:30pm – Reading (Probably something from my in-development SF novel "Primal Stranger.")

Saturday, August 15th
10:00am – 11:00am – Panel: Blogging and Podcasting – From keeping in touch with fans to building a community.
5:00pm – 6:00pm – Panel: Star Trek – I’ll be moderating this discussion on the new Star Trek movie.
8:00pm – 9:00pm – Panel: Dr. Who – Speciesist? – a look at how The Doctor has a habit of destroying as much as he saves.

Sunday, August 16th
1:00pm – 2:00pm – Signing – come see me in the dealers room and I’ll be happy to scribble in your books.
2:00pm – 3:00pm – Panel: Let’s Get Graphic – we get to talk about Graphic Novels.

If you are in the Austin area, stop on by and join in the fun.

Wow – is it really eight months since I last posted anything in the RevSF blog space – That was not intentional. Sorry I’ve been away for so long.

So if anyone is left who might actually read this thing, what have I been up to.

Well simply put, I’ve been writing – a lot.

2009 has simply been something of a break through year for me in terms of actually getting paid to write stuff.

Perhaps the biggest project I have been involved in is the one I mentioned in my last post all those months ago.

STAR TREK: A comics history is now done and on its way to a store near you in the not too distant future. The fine folks at Hermes Press gave the book its official launch at San Diego Comic-Con where we had about 30 advance copies flown in.

Initial reaction from those who picked up a copy at the con was very positive.

Hermes Press also used the con to debut its reprint collection of the old Gold key TIME TUNNEL comics. I wrote the introductory essay for the book and had great fun rewatching the old show, plus researching the history of time travel TV shows.

While at SDCC I spoke at length with the publisher at Hermes Press about various future planned projects, some of which I can’t talk about yet – but we have another book scheduled for 2011 and another tentatively on the schedule for 2012.

The other main project that’s been taking up my time is as the regular writer on the Disney*Pixar "World of CARS" comic book series for BOOM! Studios. The last issue of the first 4 issue story arc has just shipped, and I’ve scripted most of the second four issue arc. We’ve had approval for a third four issue arc (you might have spotted a trend) with another two waiting in the approvals pipeline.

There’s also a couple of other Disney*Pixar related pitches waiting on approvals.

Over the last year I also seemed to have developed something of a niche in writing and producing comic books for companies and various organizations. I’m currently working on a very cool corporate comics project that I hope I can share more information on before too much longer.

The writing thing also seems to be picking up in relation to my day-job with several articles appearing in various industry rags over the last few months, plus a technical / business book planned for release around May 2010.

SO that’s a quick round up of what I’ve been up to. I will try and make sure that I don’t neglect this blog again.

A few people already know about this, but now that contracts have been finalized and signed, I’m able to officially announce that the "new book project" I’ve referred to a few times over the last few weeks is:

STAR TREK: A Comics History

The book will be published by Hermes Press and is scheduled for release in May 2009.

The official press release about the project will be issued on Monday and the book will be listed in the February edition of PREVIEWS.

The image below is a design mock up for one of the possible covers.

May 2nd 2009 will be the date for next year’s FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, and the Gold Sponsor Titles have been announced.

Among them from BOOM Studios is a FCBD variant version of the first issue of CARS with words by me.

Here’s the official announcement.

Disney/Pixar’s Cars
Publisher: BOOM! Studios

Take a peek under the hood of BOOM! Studios’ line of Cars comics, based on the hit Disney/Pixar movie!

This issue includes an exciting exerpt from Cars #1, revealing the plucky origin of Lightning McQueen.

In addition, readers will be treated to never-before-seen sketches, character designs and script pages.

(W) Alan J. Porter
(A) Albert Carreres

24pgs, FC