NYCC 2023: Bolding Going With IDW’s Heather Antos And Collin Kelly

Star Trek comic books have had a number of publishers over the years. The current license sits with IDW, which recently announced several new projects for 2024, including Sons of Star Trek, featuring Jake Sisko, Nog and Worf’s son Alexander. Comicon.com sat down with IDW’s Trek editor Heather Antos and Collin Kelly, who co-writes the main Star Trek book. In this exclusive interview from New York Comic Con, the pair discusses what makes a good Trek comic and whether more Day of Blood-like crossovers are in the cards.

Tom Smithyman: Heather, you are playing with Star Trek all the time. Collin, you are writing about Trek all the time. Do you two have a dream job?

Collin Kelly: 100% it’s a dream job. Star Trek is the kind of thing that shapes you as a person. It’s core fundamental values. So it’s one of the reasons that I became a writer in the first place.

So getting the opportunity to circle back around and contribute to the very thing that helped shape me? If Jackson Lanzing, my writing partner, were here, he would say the exact same thing: It’s a dream come true. We get to regularly pinch ourselves because, in our opinion, these are some of the most important characters telling in what a lot of ways is the most important kind of story. Humanist. Forward thinking with peace as the target rather than conflict.

Heather Antos: We wouldn’t be here at New York Comic Con without Star Trek. Star Trek is the first expanded universe in the sci-fi realm. They were the first conventions. And it’s such an honor to get our fingertips on such pivotal stories.

We’re all fans of something, you remember those days when you’re just sitting on the school table with your friends and you’re like: “Wouldn’t it be cool if Worf stole the Defiant and was captain of it?” That’s our job! That’s literally what our jobs are. The “wouldn’t it be cool if” and then making those stories true.

Smithyman: Making it so! What was your first fan experience with Trek?

Kelly: I watched it with my dad. We were watching Next Generation as it was kind of popping off and then primarily Voyager. Every Voyager night he would cook up steaks he’d make chocolate milkshakes. I was growing up in Hawaii at the time, and we would pray that Rainbow Wahine volleyball didn’t preempt Star Trek. “I don’t wanna watch volleyball, I wanna watch Star Trek gosh darn it!” And that was a fundamental bonding between the two of us.

Antos: It wasn’t until I started working on it professionally that I watched it all in order. It was just it was just always on TV, whether it was original series, whether it was Next Gen. So I really got to enjoy it in its true episodic form, I think is one of the really cool things about Star Tre. It is that is so episodic and you can pick up any episode and enjoy the story.

Smithyman: Collin, you didn’t mention Deep Space Nine, which seems odd because Benjamin Sisko is the main character in your Star Trek series.

Kelly: I came to Deep Space Nine much later because, like a lot of Trek fans, in my head this was the show in a single spot. How can you have a Star Trek that’s not out there exploring the stars? So I let it slip by me. I didn’t come back to it until college and dove in and then realized that it is the best Star Trek.

I’m so sorry every other Star Trek, there’s stuff to love about you, but DS9 not only has the richest characters I believe but with the most dynamic arcs. And also the serialized storytelling that they eventually got to tell deeper stories that explored a lot of the pressing issues of our time. I think DS9 is incredible!

Smithyman: What makes a good Star Trek comic book?

Kelly: The same thing that makes a good Star Trek anything. Character focus. Making sure that you’re treating these characters like real living breathing people. Which means they have downtime. Which means they which means they’re not always on shift. But telling stories that revolve around social issues of the time reflected back into the future. I think that’s the core.

We all love our Spider-mans. We all love our Batmans. But it’s professional wrestling, right? It’s about big gaudy people smashing each other awesomely. Star Trek needs to be about more. Star Trek is about the about the human condition and how we explore that.

And then making sure that the visuals are as dynamic as possibly because, let’s be real, most Star Trek is people in suits standing in beige hallways. It’s not exactly the most visually dynamic. And once you start giving that away, you start to lose that Star Trek.

Antos: To piggyback on that, yes we are doing a storyline right now about gods. But at the end of the day, it’s about Sisko. It’s what does it mean to be a human? What does it mean to be a father. That’s Worf. We’re going to deal pretty heavily with some Beverly Crusher baggage coming forward and this current arc. Tom Paris deals pretty heavily with being a working father. So yes, the stage these things are happening on is pretty fantastic and above and beyond, but as Collin said it’s really personal and relatable.

Smithyman: Heather, as an editor, you pair artists with writers. What is that process like?

Antos: It’s a very specific process. I’m not just going out and being like: “Oh pretty!” Not just anyone can draw a Star Trek. First and foremost, you have to be able to draw likenesses. That is the first barrier of entry. You have to be able to draw Patrick Stewart. You have to be able to draw Avery Brooks. You have you know you have to be able to draw these actors.

Second, you have to be able to draw tech. Star Trek is very tech heavy And we have both of those in Ramon Rosanas and Angel Unzueta, our main artists on Star Trek and Star Trek: Defiant. And both of them just so happens to be the world’s biggest Star Trek fans.

Kelly: And that’s the third piece: to care. Because if you’re just showing for the job just because you can get it, you’re not going to bring the heart to it.

Smithyman: What is the endgame for the two series?

Antos: We do have a ticking clock. Nemesis is approaching, and we all know what happens there. So it is important that we set these characters up for where they will be in Nemesis, where they’ll be in Picard, where we next see them. All of that has been in the plans from day one.

Kelly: While Star Trek gets further and further to the edges of reality, Defiant is going to get tighter and tighter into the conspiracies at the heart of Starfleet. So the two books are heading in different directions for a while. But we liked Day of Blood so much, and I think the fans are responding incredibly. So if you think that’s the only crossover we have planned, you’d be sadly mistaken.

Smithyman: You have been warned, true believers! Thanks for taking the time to discuss the series.