The cover of the first of the James Blish Star Trek adaptations had the same concept: it showed the Enterprise with flames belching out of its "shuttle bay" end, as well as fiery trails from the warp nacelles. That was published in 1967.
Rockets are just cooler looking than any "reactionless drive" (rocket equation be damned.)
On the topic of the Blish novelizations, I find it curious that they came out concurrently with the show and were often based on working scripts rather than the finished episodes, so there were often substantial differences beyond Blish using his imagination to flesh out details. The story titles also varied from the episode titles (I like "The Unreal McCoy" better than the show's "The Man Trap.") [1]
The James Bama illustration you're thinking of began as a poster and advertisement prior to the debut of Star Trek in the autumn of 1966. It's a nice picture. Bama (the artist best known for painting Doc Savage's torn shirt 62 times) had photos from the second pilot episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," as references, so details of costume and makeup differ from the main run of the series.
My own theory is that Bama had pictures of the Enterprise miniature, but he (or some NBC person) decided that in portraying Captain Kirk's craft as it streaked over a planet, if it didn't spout at least three flames, nobody would know it was supposed to be a spaceship.
A slightly obsessive aficionado, one Mark Martinez-- may Roscoe always smile upon him!-- has devoted a considerable Web site to that single James Bama painting. Mr. Martinez rounds up likely reference photos used by Bama, chronicles the pictures appearances in ads, book covers, and magazines across the years, offers examples of tributes to Bama's composition by subsequent generations of Trek illustrators, and displays fan art.
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james_davis_nicoll) wrote2022-06-19 08:58 am
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(Anonymous) 2022-06-19 01:40 pm (UTC)(link)A manageable and only slightly embarrassing ailment, but if left untreated it can develop into Deglerism.
Jody Scott's I, Vampire would count... and would be enough of an extreme outlier to bring flavor to an essay.
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(Anonymous) 2022-06-19 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)The Enterprise slash the Mirror of Venus.
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Rockets are just cooler looking than any "reactionless drive" (rocket equation be damned.)
On the topic of the Blish novelizations, I find it curious that they came out concurrently with the show and were often based on working scripts rather than the finished episodes, so there were often substantial differences beyond Blish using his imagination to flesh out details. The story titles also varied from the episode titles (I like "The Unreal McCoy" better than the show's "The Man Trap.") [1]
[1] https://flashbak.com/chilling-journey-worlds-beyond-imagination-remembering-james-blishs-star-trek-books-50994/
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My own theory is that Bama had pictures of the Enterprise miniature, but he (or some NBC person) decided that in portraying Captain Kirk's craft as it streaked over a planet, if it didn't spout at least three flames, nobody would know it was supposed to be a spaceship.
A slightly obsessive aficionado, one Mark Martinez-- may Roscoe always smile upon him!-- has devoted a considerable Web site to that single James Bama painting. Mr. Martinez rounds up likely reference photos used by Bama, chronicles the pictures appearances in ads, book covers, and magazines across the years, offers examples of tributes to Bama's composition by subsequent generations of Trek illustrators, and displays fan art.