John Byrne Returns To Trek With Upcoming "Photonovel"

John Byrne, the prolific comic book writer and artist, will return to the Star Trek fold in December with “Strange New Worlds,” IDW Publishing’s Star Trek Annual 2013. “Strange New Worlds” will be a “photonovel” with an original story that plays out like a lost episode of The Original Series. “Strange New Worlds” picks up right where the TOS hour “Where No Man Has Gone Before” left off and carries on the saga of Kirk’s friend Gary Mitchell, who died in the second TOS pilot. But did he really? To tell the story, Byrne put a fresh twist on the old photomontage concept, in which actual film stills replaced traditional artwork. Here, he enhances the “fumetti” style by compositing together numerous pieces of film stills and manipulating them as he saw fit.

"There was a visual richness to that second pilot that really drew me in," Byrne said in a statement, "and since I have long wanted to experiment with something like this project, that episode seemed the perfect choice for a sequel."

Added IDW editor-in-chief Chris Ryall: “This project started out as just a fun diversion for John in between other projects and, as is wont to happen with JB, it continued to grow and become something much bigger than his original intent. It’s a blast to see an ‘all-new’ Original Series episode done this way. Byrne has produced over 500 pages of Star Trek comics for us already, but I can promise readers that they’ve never seen this kind of Star Trek comic from him before.”

Star Trek Annual 2013/”Strange New Worlds will run 48 pages and be available in stores by the third week of December. Keep an eye on StarTrek.com for additional details.