Customer Reviews

Star Trek: The Key Collection Volume 1 (Star Trek: The Key Collection)

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4 star:		(2)
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You have to view this set of comics with the above title in question. Remember Lost in Space, Land of the Giants and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea producer Irwin Allen? That's exactly the kind of stories you get like "Planet of Quick Change". There's one where the Enterprise crew members see "Mummies" from outer space in a future edition. They are fun to read because they are so low tech. For lack of a better term they are one of those guilty pleasures that kept me interested in the series long after it left the air. While I knew at the time they were not accurate to the series; they were still fun to read.

Collecting the first eight issues of the Gold Key Star Trek comic book series, this trade paperback certainly is an affordable means of owning and reading these stories. There wasn't much in the way of explanation, however, for anyone new to these comics.

The trade is well produced. I have to imagine the artwork looks better here than it did originally, at least as far as the coloring goes. I would also imagine any modern reader, whether they were familiar with Star Trek or not, would find the stories at least a little odd. Personally, I think the historical nature of these comics out weighs any shortcomings, not unlike the Golden Age comics I have read.

Unfortunately, there's little explanation for newcomers as to why the Gold Key series is so different from any other Star Trek comic book or television series. A little online research revealed the artist who drew issues #3-8, Alberto Giolitti, had never seen the television series and only had publicity photos to use as references. I don't know if the more recent volumes have more background information, but more facts and figures would be helpful. For instance, did the artists inject ideas like flame bursting from the nacelles, and the Enterprise flying VERY close to the ground, or were they drawing whatever the unknown writers told them to draw?

Having said that, I still look forward to reading and reviewing the rest of this fine series.

For more information on the Gold Key Star Trek comics, visit http://curtdanhauser.com/Main.html

Checker Book Publishing Group can be found online at http://www.checkerbpg.com

excellent come back for this collection of comic's star trek
I appreciate it because it is a nice price for a nice collection

however, with flames coming out of the Enteprise's nacelles, McCoy and Scotty in a gold shirts, and the characters not quite right, it was quite odd. But, some of the stories are very good.

I have purchased all five volumes of this Checker Publications series of the STAR TREK comics. Each volume comes with a one-page introduction by publisher Mark Thompson, providing some insights into the issues contained in the respective volume. The comics themselves are presented intact (eight issues per volume) on colorful, glossy pages, and from my untrained eye, seem to be a straight reproduction of how they originally appeared, with no obvious enhancements to the coloring. If so, it doesn't matter. The stories are still fun to read and visually pleasing, while giving you a rare opportunity to once again join the crew of the Enterprise on its "five-year mission". The drawn likenesses of the actors are very good and actually improve as the series progresses. The stories themselves may not be perfect and may not always accurately reflect the series, but they don't fail to spark the imagination or to entertain you.

For the price offered by Amazon, the STAR TREK fan can't go wrong with purchasing this series of books. They arrived quickly and were well packaged to prevent damage. So, here's your chance to own all the comics from the late 60s and into the 70s, when the series was just beginning to gain it's legendary following. Go ahead. Beam on board!

OK so other than the names this isn't true "Trek" stories, but they are fun and a real blast from the past. Great for comic fans or anyone who walked to the drug store and bought candy, Icees, and comicbooks for 20 to 25cents.

These pages are reproduced photographs of the comic book pages, not reproduced from the original art, so they look like photographs of a newsprint page-- not as crisp or bright in color as the original comic book, though they are about as good as can be done without going back to the original inked drawings and re-coloring them. If you were to buy the original comics they would probably cost about $4 to $5 a book, so this format is the bargain, but not by much.

As to content, don't let the obsessive Star Trek nerds fool you; these are fun, vintage stories with good artwork done by Gold Key, the premier movie and TV-to-comic book company of the '60s.