star-trek-50-artists-50-years-hardcover-book_670Titan Books, out now

A glorious reproduction of the exhibits at the Star Trek art gallery – with considerable added extras…

The vast majority of Star Trek fans aren’t going to be able to get to see the exhibition of art commissioned by CBS to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the show, but this is very definitely the next best thing. Reproduced on good paper stock you can now revel in all 50 of the images, and find out a great deal about how they were put together. The artists explain what Star Trek means to them, and why they’ve chosen this particular facet of the franchise to illustrate in the way they have. It’s a real shame that the interviewer(s) for this book aren’t credited, because they deserve to take a bow for some really appropriate supplementary questions that elicit answers that add to our appreciation of the fantastic artwork that was chosen for this exhibition. (“How much fun did you have playing with the brutal deaths?” may be my favourite interview question of 2016.)

The book is presented in alphabetical order of artist, from Dusty Abell to J.K. Woodward, and cover a wide variety of artistic media. Many are paintings – done with many different techniques – but there are also physical exhibits and photographic displays (including one by Leonard Nimoy). The choice of topics is fascinating: Spock features in over half of them, sometimes alongside his crewmates, and the Kirk vs Gorn battle in Arena inspires more than one.

It’s the sort of volume you almost wish was presented in loose leaf format, so you could take the pages out and use them as posters. As with some of the best of the Star Trek merchandise being released for the anniversary, it’s not cheap – but well worth the investment.

star-trek-artists-tourVerdict: Simply stunning. 10/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order 50 Artists 50 Years from Amazon.co.uk