Survival Ship and Other Stories by Judith Merril

[james_davis_nicoll]

Survival Ship and Other Stories by Judith Merril

Comments

[beamjockey]

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.