September 8th marked the sixtieth anniversary of Star Trek’s first episode being broadcast. I was born not all that long after. Mine was a generation that grew up on Star Trek: The Original Series--ST:TOS, among Trekkies. While I never really considered myself a 'Trekkie', the Original Series and the 1970s animated show were an important part of my childhood. I can say the same for the 'novelizations' of ST:TOS by James Blish. My Aunt Debbie, who was kind enough to take me to see Conan the Barbarian for my birthday, owned a nearly complete set of those collections.

Looking back, what the original series had--and what so many of its successors lack--is chemistry. The dynamic between Kirk, Spock and Bones was lightning in a bottle. Shatner as Kirk--despite all the detractors--was able to pull off a role that many others would've fumbled. He was Horatio Hornblower--or Jack Aubrey--in Space. Kirk may have been 'corny' and larger than life, but Shatner sold that role--episode after episode.

The two Star Trek episodes which still truly stand out in my mind are "Arena" and "Space Seed" (another notable episode was “The Omega Glory”). "Arena" pits Kirk against a sneaky bipedal reptile. I had a very visceral reaction to this episode the first time I watched it...which was several years before I finally got to read "The Shadow Kingdom". "Space Seed", despite two major plot-holes I didn't notice at the time, stuck with me from the night I watched it just a few miles from where I'm typing right now. Ricardo Montalbán's charisma versus Kirk's was a match made in the Federation's post-scarcity utopia. Ricardo owned virtually every scene he was in. I distinctly remember hoping that Khan's descendants would eventually reach for the stars and kick some ass.

Of course, "Space Seed" ended up spawning Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, almost the only Star Trek movie truly worth rewatching, in my opinion. Once again, Montalbán turned in a great performance. The script took inspiration from the Original Series but did not employ time travel.

Time travel--or its close equivalents, like "Bread and Circuses" and "A Piece of the Action"--is the besetting sin of the Star Trek franchise. Many--if not most-- Star Trek scriptwriters seem incapable of crafting a script without resorting to time travel in some fashion. Apparently, those writers believe that audiences simply cannot relate to a sci-fi story unless it is grounded in something the audience already knows. However, even that lame premise doesn't seem to cover many of the episodes from later 'Trek' iterations. It is all contemporary social commentary with a thin SF veneer that barely differentiates it all from an episode of Law and Order. Personally, I'll just rewatch episodes of Babylon 5--Bruce Boxleitner is a serious REH fan, by the way.

So here we are, getting to the actual point of this blog entry. In 1976, Kelly Freas--the undisputed Master of Space Opera Art at the time--published his Star Trek Portfolio. It goes for good money these days. Check it out below.

Kelly Freas at the height of his powers.

Here is a Freas painting for a 1975 sci-fi convention program:

Now, for an exclusive DMR Books Blog bonus, here are two illustrations from early 1970s fanzines by Stephen Fabian, who was a huge fan of Freas. These actually predate Mr. Freas’ ‘Trek’ portraits. From what I understand, there are several other illustrations like these out there, but I can’t find any good scans. Raise a glass of Romulan ale to both dearly departed artists. Let their work never be forgotten.