IDW Publishing

IDW Publishing is the latest comic book publisher to have obtained the Star Trek licence. They did so in 2006 with the first comics published in January 2007.

Format
IDW has so far released Star Trek comics in miniseries of five or six issues over several consecutive months. Each comic is thirty-two pages in length, twenty-two of which are actually story. The story pages flow uninterrupted with the final ten pages consisting of adverts, previews and interviews relating to other IDW projects, letters pages, and in some issues The Trek Life comic strips. The inside front cover of each comic contains a title a credit page and an opening monologue like paragraph of text related to the miniseries. Each comic is available in several covers, the fewest so far has been three, the issue with the most had seven, the back inside cover of each comic is a cover gallery for that issue.

Completed series
IDW's first miniseries, which began in January 2007, was titled The Space Between, celebrating TNG's 20th anniversary with six issues set variously through TNG's TV seasons. The series was written by David Tischman and the series artist was Casey Maloney. The first five issues of the series told apparently stand alone stories, released out of chronological order. The epilogue in the fifth issue and the entire sixth issue then tie the entire series together. The omnibus of this series was released in September 2007.

IDW's second project, starting April 2007, was a TOS miniseries; Klingons: Blood Will Tell. The five issue series presents the Star Trek universe from the Klingon's point of view. A framing story set amongst the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country looks back at TOS episodes, creating interconnectivity between the episodes and adding a Klingon twist. The series was written by Scott and David Tipton with art by David Messina. The omnibus of this series will be released in November 2007.

In production
IDW's third project, Year Four, began in July 2007, which over six issues tells stories set in what would have been the forth season of TOS. The series is written by David Tischman with art for most issues by Steve Conley. Gordon Purcell and Rob & Joe Sharp will be providing art for the third and forth issues.

Future projects
Three projects have so far been announced for future publication; In September 2007 another six part series, Alien Spotlight, will start. Each comic in the series will be a one-off TOS or TNG story focusing on a different alien species and each issue will be written and illustrated by a different creative team.

IDW's fifth project will be five part TNG miniseries titled Intelligence Gathering which will explore the TNG characters from angles not typically seen. Like the previous TNG series each issue will be "done-in one" story which may lead to some sort of general conclusion to the series. This series will be written by Scott and David Tipton with art by David Messina.

Announced in Focus on... Star Trek another project in the works is Probability Factor, a six issue miniseries, three issue TOS and three TNG. The series will tell "What if?" stories exploring episodes that might have been is some factor had changed. The episodes choose for the alternate universe treatment will be selected by and voted for by fans. This series is likely to be written by David Tischman.

In August 2007 D.C. Fontana revealed she was working on a comics project for IDW. The five part story arc co-written by Derek Chester will continue the voyages of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) following on from the Year Four miniseries and will include an appearance from Arex.

Possible future series
IDW's currently only hold the licenses for TOS and TNG (the most generally popular series) comics and are continuing to test the waters with various projects before considering expansion into other series. The company have the right of first refusal to the rest of franchise should they later decide to expand out from the two series. The current licences include the full breath of both series and spin-offs so IDW could do stories in the era of Captain Pike and comics from the New Frontier series.

Dan Taylor had suggested he would like to do further Alien Spotlight issues and his successor as editor, Andrew Steven Harris, has implied a second series is in the works, with Dan Taylor pencilled in to write one of the issues.

Both David Tischman and Dan Taylor have expressed interest in writing a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comic series, with Taylor favoring setting it after "What You Leave Behind". Andrew Steven Harris has also expressed an interest in DS9 stating "DS9 holds a special place in my heart". .

Editorial interest has also been shown in doing Star Trek: Enterprise comics. There has also been contact between IDW and Peter David in regards to a Star Trek: New Frontier project. However, for the time being IDW are planning to keep their publications firmly amongst the very popular TOS and TNG series, which may include projects to tie in with the new TOS movie due out 2008.

Connections

 * IDW Publishing's website.