Abrams ComicArts is releasing hardcover editions featuring Topps’ long history with Star Trek and the creator of Tintin this fall.Later this month, as one in a number of trading card retrospectives tied to the long history of The Topps Company, Abrams ComicArts is publishing Star Trek: The Original Topps Trading Card Series, a 216-page hardcover book at $19.95. "It’s a reprint of all the cards in the original series from ’76," Abrams ComicArts Executive Editor Charles Kochman told us. "All the cards, all the stickers. The text is by Paula Block and Terry Erdmann. They did a wonderful job writing captions, writing an intro, putting the cards in context. They interviewed Len Brown, who was the editor on the series; and Gary Gerani, who was the writer of the text on the back of the cards. This takes you inside with the guys who made them." The art for the book was shot from the original cards.
The book rectifies an injustice, Kochman explained, by making Sulu (played in the original series by George Takei) the subject of two bonus cards inserted into each copy. Sulu did not appear on any of the cards in the original set. "Like all the Topps books we do, they come in a little shrink-wrapped pack glued to the inside back cover," Kochman said. "So they are actual trading cards. You can only get them here in the books."
