MAD Musicals

How about a singalong to wipe away the blues? If you somehow missed the Star Trek musical, the Star Wars musical and the Lord Of The Rings musical on Broadway, or didn't get the original cast recording album, now's your chance to catch up. All together now.

Leonard Nimoy

I guess we've all heard by now, but if you haven't, we lost Leonard Nimoy last night.
Regardless of anybody's personal opinion of Star Trek, love it, loathe it, indifferent towards it, here's the thing: When you talk about pop culture, this guy was a part of everybody's lives, even if in a minor way, for decades. That's worth noting.

Like the DJ's say, I guess all we can do is play a song. Or, in this case, a Gold Key Star Trek :

Gold Key's Star Trek

I don't know how the world's Trekkies feel about Gold Key's Star Trek comic, but I really liked it on the rare occasions I got the chance to actually buy one. The stories always felt appropriate, as if they were scripts for the TV show that just hadn't been filmed yet, and the art was always great.
Star Trek was drawn by Italian master Alberto Giolitti, who did loads of things for Gold Key, including Turok, Son Of Stone and a magnificent adaptation of King Kong ( both of which we'll get to, panic not )
and was written by a succession of authors, including Len Wein & The Doom Patrol's Arnold Drake.
Interestingly, although Giolitti drew the adventures of the Enterprise for over ten years, he did so without ever seeing a single episode of the show, working instead from studio provided stills.
This is obvious from the early issues, when presumably photo reference was in short supply, as both the crew and the interiors of the ship look much more generic and vaguely defined.
By the issue featured here, though, Giolitti knew exactly what he was doing, and the story as I say, feels completely like an episode of the show.
I originally read this issue's tale in a black & white British reprint, a softcover annual / summer special that I religiously coloured in with felt tips, making sure that Kirk's shirt was yellow, not green. Here's how the professionals did it.