Space: the ol’ near-infinite panel gutter. These are the carefully recorded Star Trek voyages of Ensign Avery Kaplan. Her mission? To dutifully observe and analyze the various arms and evolutions of the Cali-classiest sci-fi Franchise to ever grace the small screen. This week, she’s reviewing The Art of Star Trek Lower Decks.
Warp me!
The Art of Star Trek: Lower Decks
Written by: Megan Treviño
Forewords by: Mike McMahan and Barry J. Kelly
Art by: More than 100 talented artists
Published by: IDW
Star Trek: Lower Decks was a special series. Created by Mike McMahan, the show managed to balance established Franchise continuity with new material better than any other show of the Secret Hideout era. The Art of Star Trek: Lower Decks is a testament to all the hard work that went into this achievement, celebrating the crew and giving fans a return to the feeling that came with sitting down to a new episode of Lower Decks.
The Art of Star Trek: Lower Decks
Art books are all the rage these days, and many have been released alongside certain movies and TV shows (especially those related to superheroes or Star Wars and those that were animated). But if you’ve spent any time with any flavor of these volumes, you know that not all art books are created equal.
Thankfully, The Art of Star Trek: Lower Decks ranks among the best. Coming in at almost 350 pages, the book is breathtaking from the moment you open the cover. On both end pages are gorgeous reproductions of some of Lower Decks’ most gorgeous scenes. These include one of the crystalline entities from “I, Excretus,” the U.S.S. Cerritos facing off against a Pakled Clumpship in “No Small Parts” and the Vagra II slime pool where Armus lives from “The Spy Humongous.”
These are a great overture for the contents of The Art of Star Trek: Lower Decks. The book opens with chapters that focus on character design for the Delta Shifters, the bridge crew and the Cerritos itself. These chapters are followed by five chapters that cover each season of the series. And I especially appreciated that these open with the movie-poster parodies that were revealed in advance of each Lower Decks season.
In these five chapters, all fifty Lower Decks episodes get their own spotlight. Some episodes are given a few more pages than others, but every single episode gets attention. This attention to detail will help you appreciate just how much work and care went into each and every episode of the series. And while the main event will, of course, be the art, plenty of quotations are included alongside the art, including some surprising and engaging facts about the foundations of the show.
Cerritos Strong
The Art of Star Trek: Lower Decks is a nice hardcover book that comes in the typical size for these kinds of art books (11” x 10”). The art inside is reproduced crisply and in full, screen-accurate color. There are a few instances of double splash pages, giving you a chance to behold, for example, the Ferenginar Historic Public Library in all its glory.
If you’re a fan of Lower Decks, I can’t recommend this book enough. It is a thorough and very well executed celebration of a once-in-a-lifetime series. And if you’re a Lower Decks holdout, well, maybe check it out anyway – it might help you appreciate what the rest of us see in it.
The Art of Star Trek: Lower Decks is available beginning today at a local bookstore, comic shop and/or public library near you.
Keep up with all of The Beat’s Star Trek coverage here.
