1997 / Ebook / 139 pages / USA
***
Flowery analysis of two precocious teenage concertos and speculations on the mysterious third, contrasted with resentful reactions from triggered peers.
Peter David, James W. Fry and Gordon Purcell, Star Trek Comics Classics – The Trial of James T. Kirk
****
It's been a pleasure to discover after 20-odd years of infrequent flipping that there are actually some good Star Trek comics out there after all, so it's a shame Peter David's run more or less ends here. The franchise would eventually embrace his serialised approach (and background soapiness, alas), and he's in the right mental space for the original cast's big-screen finale the following year. Stranger is that he also predicts the Seinfeld finale the best part of a decade early.
Michael Jan Friedman, Pablo Marcos, Ken Penders and Mike Manley, Star Trek: The Next Generation Comics Classics – Maelstrom
**
The (arguably) premature final collection of curtailed DC TNG reprints (less than a quarter of the way through the run, though some arcs were released earlier) is a typically variable and forgettable batch that leans more towards the crap side this time, not helped by increasingly unreliable art that creates plot holes when it's not just colouring uniforms wrong. No worries, I doubt Trekkies are going to notice something minor like that.
Nikki Stafford, Finding Lost: Season Three – The Unofficial Guide
2007 / Ebook / 213 pages / USA****
Probably the most annoying stretch to watch in real time, but this highly engaged contemporaneous commentary fills in the production background and strange supplements you'd be oblivious to on a binge. Some of the trivia categories are pointless and relentless, and the literary essays are more showing off than insightful, but padding was better than the alternative of only doing this every two years. She should do all the shows. If anyone else still reads these things.
Rhys Hughes, The Mermaid Variations: A Miniature Trilogy
2006-07 (collected 2012) / Ebook / 51 pages / UK***
One of his shorter story cycles, I was bewitched by the sensory evocation of the beginning that threatened to explore new realms of serious romantic fantasy, but then the confidence falters and we're dragged back into the gravitational pull of his customary style, dredging up an unpleasant Key Stage 3 tutor side of me that questioned whether he has to make everything funny. By the second story he's self-flagellating and can't really be arsed to carry on, but it's not as if he could waste the opportunity of lunar seas once that had come to him.
