Wednesday 25 May 2016

Ships of the Line 2017 covers, and other calendar updates

It's that time of year where with great excitement we get to see what await us in next year's Ships of the Line calendar! This year is TOS focused collection looks like a real winner, topped off with a Doug Drexler's latest massive-collection-of-ships image, which features both as the cover and, in it's full form, one of the interior images. Continue below for a look at all the images in this calendar, and updates from the other 2017 calendars.



Most of the entries this year seem to be giving us new takes on key scenes from TOS episodes. In addition to Doug's striking cover, featured are:

  • The Corbomite Maneuver - Poker, by Michael Wiley, with a lovely presentation of the extreme difference in scale between the Enterprise and Fesarius. 
  • A shot of a TOS shuttle by Gabriel Koerner. From the green something outside the shuttle bay, I would guess that's the Galileo about to launch out to explore Murasaki 312, from The Galileo Seven.
  • Gabriel Koerner also contributed the unique view of the launch of the SS Botany Bay.
  • Space Seed - Descent , by Doug Drexler also features the Botany Bay, presumably about to be taken down to Ceti Alpha V.
  • From Dave Morton we have what looks like a variety of shuttle parked near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
  • Tobias Richter gives us an impressively dynamic vision of the Enterprise and Gr'oth visiting Deep Space Station K-7, from The Trouble with Tribbles.
  • Similar life in brought to the Enterprise's encounter with Nomad, from The Changeling, in another image from Doug Drexler.
  • Matt Boardman gives us what I guess is a take on the Enterprise being surrounded by Romulan D7's from The Enterprise Incident
  • The Tholian Web is brought to life by Alain Rivard.
  • Balance of Terror - Duel of the Flagships by D.M. Phoenix captures the dramatic encounter between the Enterprise and the Romulan Bird of Prey, and the Romulan attack on one of the Neutral Zone outposts!
  • There's Constitution class ships aplenty in Dan Uyeno's take on The Ultimate Computer.
  • And finally, from John Eaves, what is strangely one of the most revisited scenes in the Ships of the Line series, the encounter between Captain Christopher's F-104 Starfighter jet and the USS Enterprise from Tomorrow is Yesterday.

Maybe it's just the fact that it's an all TOS year, but I get a much greater feeling of visual consistency this time; there are a lot of images with close-ups, and slightly quirky angles, that makes this set of images work well together as well as on their own.

The 2017 Ships of the Line calender is due out in July. Here are a couple of previews of the spreads:



Just released this week, there is also the TOS calendar, here are the covers and preview pages:




There are four more calendars on the way from Universe Publishing, but no new previews of them yet, They are the Daily Calendar and Engagement Calendar, which are due out in July, the 50 Artists, 50 Years poster calendar, which will arrive in August, and the Star Trek Beyond calendar, which is coming in September.

But wait, there's more! This year German publisher Heye are putting out three Star Trek calendars!

Already out (from April) is a Mr Spock post-card calendar.


Then coming in August there is a larger format TOS poster calendar.


And not expected until November, also in the larger format, is a Star Trek Beyond calendar (but no cover for that one yet).


3 comments:

mark bernero said...

SOTL 2017 ABSOUTELY FANTASTIC!

Fox said...

I really wish they'd compile all these into one big artbook. I love the pictures they use, but I just have absolutely zero inclination to use a physical calendar.

mark bernero said...

They did! Check out Amazon.

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