Star Trek Comic Strip ( US ) The " Star Trek " Comic Strip ( US ) was a newspaper comic strip based on " Star Trek " . It ran for four years , consisting of twenty story arcs told through over 1 , 400 individual strips and lasting from through . Authorized by Paramount Pictures and syndicated in the United States of America by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate , it appeared in newspapers daily in black and white and Sundays in color . Setting . The strip took place on the starship chronologically after the first " Star Trek " movie , and when it began it used the characters , Starfleet alien races , uniforms , sets , and props from the film . Curiously , the scripts and artwork for the first story must have been completed before the ending of the movie was known , as Ilia is alive and well , and operating the navigation console . Since was released in the middle of the run of the strip , the uniforms and ranks were revised ( without comment ) to reflect those from the second film beginning on – three months after the film ' s debut . History . 1979 was a banner year for newspaper comic strips set in outer space . Nine months before the " Star Trek " strip came out a " Star Wars " comic strip had premiered – interestingly enough , also syndicated by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate . ( As a result , the " Los Angeles Times " itself never ran the strip , choosing instead to use " Star Wars " ; the Syndicate - owned newspaper the " Houston Chronicle " was given " Star Trek " instead . ) " Buck Rogers " was reborn in comic form in , and " Flash Gordon " was still around , having been in newspapers since it was introduced in 1934 . So when the " Star Trek Comic Strip " first appeared four days prior to the world premiere of it immediately ran into significant competition from the other fantasy / science - fiction comic strips of the time . Many major newspapers which wanted a space comic at all had thus already picked one or even two up by the time " Star Trek " was released . ( " The Washington Post " had both " Star Wars " and " Buck Rogers " , for example , and passed on " Star Trek " . ) So there was a space comic glut when " Star Trek " became available in late 1979 and it primarily ran in smaller papers in the US markets if it ran at all . There was also some limited release in Europe , but poor record - keeping on the part of Paramount Pictures has resulted in no one today knowing the full extent of its distribution in any market . Regardless , the strip simply never achieved major publicity or popularity , arriving and disappearing with many ardent fans never realizing it had even existed at all . Form over substance . There was ( and remains ) one other problem with popularizing a " Trek " comic strip besides distribution : the limitations of the medium itself . While many people receive a newspaper every day , some people subscribe to a paper only on Sunday or only during the week . So as not to bore the people who do read the comic each day , or confuse the people who only read the strip on Sunday , no more plot development can occur during the week than can be summarized and moved forward just a bit on Sunday , followed by a summarization of Sunday ' s new plot points on Monday . It is a delicate balance , matching pacing to time , and sometimes results in a feeling of stagnation and repetitiveness . So for those expecting a fast moving adventure story like on television , the comic strips can seem positively leaden at times . Nonetheless , the " Trek " comic strip had talented people involved and sometimes rose above these limitations to create stories and concepts interesting in their own right . Profiles of writers and artists . Many comic book and comic strip writers and artists who work in franchises they themselves did not create ( such as " Star Wars " , " Mary Worth " , " Prince Valiant " , etc . ) toil primarily in obscurity . Information is thus sometimes hard to obtain on them , and is a little suspect even when found . Nonetheless , the following are profiles of the main creative staff identified in the strips as being behind the production of the " Star Trek Comic Strip " . Others involved in the production of the comic strip were Alfredo Alcala , Paul Chadwick , Robert Goodbread , Alan Munro , Laurie Newell , Mark Rice , Duke Riley , Terry Robinson , Serc Soc , Dan Spiegle , Kurt Warkentin , and Yang . Summaries . Links to summaries are noted below . Working " The Wristwatch Plantation " . Larry Niven introduced the Kzinti to the " Star Trek " universe in . He returned to the franchise with that species in " The Wristwatch Plantation " story arc in the comic strip . As Niven tells it , Sharman DiVono asked him at a party whether he wanted to help her write for the comic strip . Thinking it would be fun , he readily agreed . During the course of the production of the strip the artist Ron Harris decided that he had to reduce the workload in his life and opted to drop his association with the " Star Trek " comic . ( He also had been romantically involved with DiVono and they parted company about the same time . ) He said he would stay on and finish the piece , but only if Niven and DiVono quickened the pace of the story and finished it earlier than originally planned . Since they didn ' t want to switch artists in the middle of the work , they did so and Harris finished it up . ( He also worked a little on the next arc before Warkentin came back and finished the art on that one . ) But even at an accelerated pace the story arc was the longest in the run of the comic at twenty weeks . Niven had envisioned a more dramatic ending than ended up in the strip , and described it in his book " Playgrounds of the Mind " . He wanted a transporter interaction between the " Enterprise " transporters and the Bebebebeque ' s transporters to result in every life form in a square mile being placed randomly aboard the " Enterprise " and fighting it out to the end . He envisioned a color Sunday spread showing a massive battle on the lush recreation deck , with small Beeks , large Kzinti , massive ravagers , and Humans all fighting each other with multiple weapons and even hand - to - hand . Perspective and orientation would have been " all screwed up " and the overall effect would have been a " hallucinatory Vietnam " . The final ending worked , Niven believed , but it was not the spectacle he had had in mind . Post - newspaper publication . After " The Wristwatch Plantation " was finished , Niven and DiVono discussed turning the story into a novel , or at least publishing the strips themselves as a separate book . However , personnel shakeups at the " Times " and Paramount after the strip ' s run resulted in an initial interest in the publication evaporating . It was left to a tabloid - style magazine marketed to pop culture collectors called " Nostalgia World " to pick up the republication rights . The magazine issued reprints of some of the daily ( and none of the Sunday color ) " Star Trek " strips as supplements to its issues from the early to mid - 1980s . Strips from Story Arc # 1 through Story Arc # 9 were reprinted in that way ( with Story Arc # 6 ending in the middle with the 10 / 13 / 1980 strip for some reason ) . " The Wristwatch Plantation " was not among the ones republished . The supplements were separate " Comics Sections " entitled " Voyages of the Enterprise " ( for " Trek " Comic Sections No . 1 through No . 3 ) and simply " Star Trek " ( for Sections No . 6 and No . 7 ) . Comic Sections 4 and 5 do not exist and never did . The story goes that the warehouse of the printer used by the publication had a fire that destroyed all the art for Sections 4 and 5 . The accepted explanation goes on to say that the Sections were never reconstructed or reprinted as the contract between the LA Times Syndicate and Paramount had lapsed such that the Syndicate could not legally supply additional copies of the art . Other than the abrupt ending in the middle of Story Arc # 6 all the strips from 12 / 3 / 1979 through 7 / 21 / 1981 were published in supplements . In the late ' 90s , " Star Trek Communicator " columnist Rich Handley finished assembling a complete set of both the US and UK " Star Trek " comic strips ( five years ' worth of additional material had run from 1969 - 1973 in the United Kingdom ) . He offered the strips to both Pocket Books and WildStorm Publishing , both of which were very keen on reprinting both runs in their entirety , but this did not come to pass . John J . Ordover , then editor of Pocket Books in charge of the " Star Trek " publications , said in a 2001 posting on the site Psi Phi ( reproduced here ) , that one reason the strips would likely never be published in an official bound ( non - newspaper ) version is that the " legal stuff is in a huge mess " . Multiple syndicators in the US and Europe , different artist and writer contracts , and the inability of Paramount to even " find " the contracts made assessments of rights in the works and the resultant costs to publish them impossible . Initial plans for a printed collection were dropped after the hurdles to clear legalities became too overwhelming . The strips were eventually reprinted by IDW Publishing beginning in in the " " with the first ten stories collected in " " and the last ten stories in " " and in the " Eaglemoss " part work the " Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection " split into three volumes : " The Newspaper Strips Volume 1 " ( stories 1 - 6 ) , " Volume 2 " ( stories 7 - the first half of 12 ) and " Volume 3 " ( the second half of story 12 - story 20 ) .