By GustavoLeao / 20:20, 3 September 2007 / Trek Books

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TrekWeb talks to IDW Editor Andrew Steven Harris about the present and future of the Star Trek comic book license.

1-The Marvel series (and specially Early Voyages) has ignored the Pocket Books novels events because they are not "canon". What about IDW ?

We're not specifically planning on spinning stories out of the Pocket Books stuff, mostly because we're primarily interested in telling our own stories. All of our material will be compatible with official canon, but compatibility with non-official canon is another matter entirely. For one thing, there's just an enormous amount of it: Are our writers and editors really going to read every ST books out there, and then meticulously conform our stories to the contents of every single published page?

That wouldn't improve the quality of our storytelling, it would dismantle it -- spending hours upon hours fact-checking against every Trek book, all for the sole purpose of actually limiting the stories we want to tell, and for the sole benefit of those number of our readers who had also read all of the Trek novels and actually remember each particular event. Attempting to conform our material to every single non-canon story out there is really not desirable, and probably not even possible. Continuity with non-canon sources is most certainly a virtue, but it's not the only virtue.

The second problem with attempting to conform to all of the non-canon material is that some of the material already contradicts itself. As you pointed out, the Marvel Comics titles ignored the Pocket Books events; so which one do we follow? You seem to feel that the Pocket Books are more authentic -- and that's a perfectly legitimate view -- but, at the same time, someone else might feel that as a fellow comics publisher, IDW should regard the Marvel issues as more quasi-canonical; and that's ALSO a perfectly legitimate view. So... which one do we pick?

There's no really good answer for that, and no way to please everybody, other than simply working hard to tell the best stories that we can. We try to comport with all sorts of non-canon continuity whenever possible, and we never go out of our way to intentionally invalidate someone else's story; but if non-canon continuity paradoxes occur, well -- that's just what happens sometimes when you use the warp drive.

2-Why noy use comics creators like Peter David, Jerome Moore or Mike Collins who are not only fan favorites, but are very familiar with the franchise ? A New Frontier mini series by David would be very welcomed.

Hmmm.

3-Do you plan to adapt the William Shatner novels like DC Comics did with the Ashes of Eden Graphic Novel in 1995 ?

No plans at this time, since right now we're interested in telling our own stories. Of course, like any plans, they're subject to change, so don't discount the possibility entirely, but don't look for it in the immediate future.

4-Regarding the post-Nemesis controversy, since Pocket Books is now publishing their new post-Nemesis novels, what about a post-Nemesis comics ?

I suppose that's a greater possibility than question #3, and I have plans to raise the subject with some of the higher-level decision-makers here and elsewhere. I have, in another topic, posted what I see as some of the potential obstacles to it, though it's still something I'd personally love to do.

5-Any chances of a TOS series featuring Captain Christopher Pike and his crew ?

Hmmm.

6-IDW got comics legend John Byrne to do the Romulan issue of Alien Spotlight ? How about a TOS or TNG mini-series from Byrne ?

That would be awesome, but it's probably not in the cards. John has been a big-time Trek fan for years, but for a long time he's also been open about the fact that he doesn't enjoy drawing books with likenesses in them. (Of course, he easily has the skill for it, just not the creative desire.) The Aliens Spotlight titles, being fairly unusual among ST comics, finally gave John the chance to draw a Trek book without having to worry about the approval hassles, etc., that sometimes go along with actor likenesses.

Okay, hope all that helps!

This interview was posted originally at IDW Star Trek Message Board.