Friday 9 October 2015

1987: STAR TREK: CHAIN OF COMMAND (Titan Books)

From March 1987: the first of the British STAR TREK paperbacks published by Titathre  Books: CHAIN OF ATTACK, by Gene DeWeese,

As the number top-left suggests, this was the first of the Pocket Books Trek novels to be reprinted in the UK by Titan Books.

Titan was the house that DREDD built thanks to the succession of 2000AD albums, and the Eagle Comics line, reprinting already paid for strips from "the galaxy's greatest comic".

By the second half of the Eighties, the publisher (part of the group which also owned Titan Distributors and Forbidden Planet) was obviously looking to expand (and hedge its bets) by signing up to publish UK editions of DC and Trek books. 

The benefit to Brits is that this gave the UK editions far better distribution than the old imports. Suddenly it was possible to find British editions in WH Smith as well as the specialty book stores supplied by Titan.

The Pocket Books deal also allowed Titan to publish new editions of large format books such as the seminal MISTER SCOTT'S GUIDE TO THE ENTERPRISE. 

Titan didn't following the numbering and release sequence of the American run. This was actually the 32nd book in the stateside run of paperbacks. 

Titan eventually lost the license in favour of simply shipping US editions into the UK but the association continues today via the official magazine.

I've not read the book (I found it recently it a second-hand bookstore and bought it for its start-of-the-run significance) but its noticable that the artist has muddle TV uniforms (and a TV-aged cast) with the then current (and always the best) movie Enterprise.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...