I was hooked on sci-fi from day one.

The first movie and I ever saw was Star Wars, in the theater, in 1977.  I was a newborn, it’s true, but there’s no denying that I have been fascinated with all-things-science-fiction ever since.  It’s both exciting and soothing to me.

So, I thought I might deviate in this post from the normal my-art-sharing to share my thoughts about a recent sci-fi encounter I’ve had.  I don’t think of myself as a reviewer (there’s plenty of great sites, blogs, podcasts, and so on, for that already), but this one really struck a chord with me.

Recently I picked up the first issue of the new Star Trek/Planet of the Apes series from IDW and Boom:

I’ve been disappointed by such crossovers in the past, but this one is really good!  The art is perfect and the story engaging and consistent with both franchises.  It doesn’t feel rushed or forced at all.  Go read it… now.  Anyway, as I was thinking about how much I liked it, I realized it was partly because I was feeling nostalgic.  So, I went rummaging through my bloated archive library of back issues until I found this gem:

This was the original run-in that Starfleet had with a planet full of malicious apes, and I remember it shocking me as a kid.  In the issue, the crew of a starship are stranded on this world full of blood-thirty primates, waiting for rescue.  There’s a lot of blood and death, and it really engaged my imagination as an impressionable youth.  I grew up in in Arkansas in the 1980’s, and there was a real lack of out-of-state culture then.  My only access to comics was at sparse racks of an occasional roadside 7-Eleven.  I felt very lucky to get this, and have held on to it for almost 30 years…

I like that comics redoes things.  Relaunches, ret-con’s, and re-imaginings continue the things that I love and usually put a creative spin on them.  With static art, you can study all those images for as long as you want, and each artist puts their own unique passion into the work.  The artwork in this issue does feel dated.  I love it, but that may be the nostalgia:

It’s fun, creative, and tells a fascinating story.  It says something about science fiction from that time, too, and how that genre really never has any limits.