[Kirok]

To all things there comes an end and after a difficult delivery...

Hailing Frequencies Open: Personal Logs Issue 2 is now online!



Go to our new website at
http://tupub-books.blogspot.com.au
for full details

Quote

TrekUnited keeps the grand tradition of Trekzines alive with another issue of Personal Logs! Our cover feature is a powerful action drama by GS Davis, spotlighting characters from his web comic, USS Tamarlane and the art throughout, including specially commissioned portraits by Sean Tourangeau, is stunning ! This massive issue ranges from continuations of Madison Bruffys' "Altered Lives" and Janet Gershen-Siegels' "Freak School" to TL Shulls' poignant "Filling In The Blanks". There is something for every taste by authors both new and established such as Aquarius & Pauline Mac from The Delphic Expanse, Lil Black Dog & Nerys Ghemor from Ad Astra, Naithom, KarraCaz and Simon Arch. 78p. A5 Digest format

As with everything we produce at TrekUnited Publications, it is absolutely free to download and read. Over the coming week I'm going to take great pleasure intoroducing you to the people who helped to make this happen, the authors and artists, but it is fitting that I first mention the person who has done the most to keep this on track - Jespah! Not only did she contribute one of the stories, more about that later in the week, but she set up the graphic for her story which the other mainstay of TU Publishing, Madison Bruffy, tweeked and polished up for her. She also contributed a commentary on the importance of social media for writers - a hot topic in self-publishing circles - but perhaps most importantly she has been proactive in being our voice on Twitter as well as our representative of various fan fiction forums across the interwebs.

After the last Twelve Trek Days of Christmas, I despaired at the apparent disappearance of the Trekzine. I refuse to let it die. I firmly believe that there are writers who have short stories that are well worth printing and there is a readership niche of Star Trek fans who want to read what they have to say. This takes nothing away from the professional prublication of licensed books and comics by Simon & Schuister and IDW because it tells stories that mainstream publication could not support: adult fiction, drama that takes the road less traveled (or the canon road never taken), original characters that tread the ragged edge of danger, stories that range from one end of the feel-good spectrum to the other, from tragedies and disasters that canon says could never happen to happy endings for romantic pairings that never quite made it on the screen.

I hope you enjoy what you read and if you do, give the authors and artists the thing that is the next best thing to a publishing contract: comment! It is the coin that they are paid by, the reward for their labours. Either here or on their home forums, tell them if you enjoyed their work, what you thought was their best point and (gently friends) what you thought they could improve with.

And if it re-kindles the fire you once had in your heart for Star Trek re-visit it with the re-mastered DVDs, move on to more wonders in the cinema of your mind with a book or role-play as one of the great captains of Starfleet yourself on Star Trek Online. Star Trek and Star Trek fandom is not just a nostalgia fest, for those with the itch to explore there are and always will be new frontiers, new worlds and civilisations.

Come with us as we boldly go...

Kirok of L'Stok
Publisher, TrekUnited Publishing

[Kirok]

Our first featured story is Filling In The Blanks from TL Shull - our very own Terilynn! It was obvious that the relationship between Reed and Hayes was going to be rocky right from the start and there can be no doubt that Reed regretted much of what he had done in The Expanse. Like everyone else, he had his own ghosts to settle when they got back to Earth ... A powerful examination of grief and forgiveness.





Terilynn is a self-confessed Trekkie, an editor at Airlock Alpha, a Columnist at Massively and one half of the podcast Sunday G and T Show, a Star Trek Online Dork and all around Geekette. Where she finds the time to write her fan fiction is a constant source of wonder. http://www.facebook.com/TerilynnS.

Reed from Enterprise, like Bones, is a subject that is not popular because he is not an easy subject to capture. However Terilynn Shull's Filling In The Blanks on p.156 is just such a powerful character piece that it begged something that shows the doubts and regrets of bereavement. I like to think my pencils of a rotoscoped image caught that, see more on my deviantART Gallery for Personal Logs.

K

[jespah]

Yay!

[Kirok]

An editor is in an enviable and, at the same time, unenviable situation. For our latest issue of Personal Logs Naithom gave us a great piece of romantic fiction with a singular twist to the tale. She also gave me two beautiful pieces of artwork from Karracaz.



Enviable, right?

The problem is that I then have to use these resources to build a title page for the story that grabs the reader and draws them into the story. To do that I need to make subtle changes to the artwork, using my own judgement to achieve that. You have no idea how awkward that is! I frankly felt like I was taking liberties with Karracaz' great images but in the end you have to man up to it - you have a responsibilty to all concerned, author, artist and reader, to think of the total package.

Unenviable, believe me!

My overall style for the zine is that the graphics have to be in black & white - this is to give it a hand-made feel, a link with the hard-copy zines of the past. This meant losing the element of colour. In addition, cover art needs to tell a story and, whilst each of Karracaz's pieces had a story to tell individually I had to merge them so that the image the reader saw was one story and not two.

In a way it was photomanipulation of a photomanipulation! I positioned them to give the impression that Christine is turning away, shocked at something that T'Pring has just told her. What could that be? You'll have to read the story to find that out, won't you? Naithom dedicated this story to her writing group on deviantART, Spock and Christine Lovers, who she says "amuse, bemuse and inspire me." For more about the character that Majel Barrett Roddenberry brought to life, the ultimate Vulcan himself and their love that might have been, read Naithom's latest story, Once Upon A Dragon either on deviantART or on 1001 Trek Tales where you'll find a substantial archive of this popular pairing.

Feel free to leave feedback for Naithom at any of these or right here - I'll make sure she gets it!

The women of TOS, whilst being strong individuals, have always struck me as very feminine - don't ever doubt that the two can't co-exist! Because of this, I broke one of my own rules and used a script font for the title, feeling that the romance of the story insisted on it.



Now that we are in print (albeit virtual print) I need promotional graphics and I have made banners up for all the stories as can be seen above. They serve a number of purposes, headers for articles such as this, graphics in a slideshow and downloadable signature banners, however for this I don't have to restrict myself to Black & White. This gives me another challenge, putting monotone graphics - I still need to use what I have in the 'zine to be honest - back into a colour environment!

I'm open to critique, either here or on my deviantART page. Is there too much white space? Should I have done a closer crop and put it onto an abstract background? That's the challenge of doing what we do - there are so many options!

My everlasting thanks to Karracaz (who I will be featuring in a later article) for giving me such beautiful clay to shape and to Naithom for such a beautiful short story to try to live up to.

K

[Kirok]

Beer, Broads and Brotherhood Story by Aquarius, art by Sean Tourangeau



Three men walk into a bar: One is looking for Miss Right, the second is looking for Miss Right-Now and the third?
Where does Jonathan Archer's heart lie?

This story came to be through the 2010 Holiday Fic Exchange challenge at The Delphic Expanse. A 'Secret Santa' style challenge, each participant had to write a story based on a randomly assigned the 'wish list' from another participant. This was my result which was judged...
2011 Delphie winner: Best Humor
2011 Delphie winner: Best Gen Story Over 2000 Words



The majority of the artwork in Personal Logs is the work of talented amateurs showing off their expertise, however we do have a few professional artists who have donated their work. In this case Sean Tourangeau, best known for his Mirror Universe work, has created some excellent portraits of the two main leads in Star Trek: Enterprise - Captain Archer and Trip Tucker which I used as the title page art for this story by Aquarius and Pauline Mac's The Captain's Journey by on p.144.

K

[jespah]

Continues to look fantastic!

[Kirok]

When Spock is injured on a landing party gone wrong, it becomes a race to save his life. Against Kirk's wishes,
McCoy comes up with an unconventional solution to the problem which may cost him his life as well.



I'd like to thank my Betas: Sam Pengraff, T'Paya and LnX all provided feedback which helped to greatly improve this piece - Lil Black Dog
Lil Black dog is a die-hard Original Series (TOS) fan, with a particular interest in the Kirk-Spock-McCoy friendship. Although she says she never wrote anything in her life, with the exception of assignments for school, until early in 2009 when she was dared by two author friends to try her hand at fan fiction, she has since penned over twenty-eight stories, with more in the works!

She writes on the Ad Astra fan fiction forum, where you can read Robert Scorpio's interview with her. She's had considerable success in the writer's challenges that they regularly have, in fact her story Lost, most of which was incorporated into Call of Duty, was the winner of their 'Cures and Their Diseases' challenge last year and is an expansion of her free write entry for 'Under the Weather', well worth reading for more of McCoy and Spock's adventures on Beta Arcida IV.



This is one of only two graphics that I had to create for myself in this issue, a pencil sketch of Bones, the main protagonist of this story. For my own part I freely admit that I am not good enough at anatomy to get the proportions and composition of a work right and I use a light table to rotoscope my base outline - think of it as a hand-drawn photomanipulation!

Whilst I'm happy with the result, it points out to me where I need work: inking outlines and shading to create a personal style. What gives me hope in this direction is the availability of affordable software that can turn any touch screen into a graphics tablet! Who are my inspirations in this direction? The great Australian artist, Norman Lindsay and Dan Carroll who Trek fans will know from his work on Amarillo Design Bureau RPG manuals.

K

[mdbruffy]

And where's everyone else?

[jespah]

W00t hiya - sorry I've been incommunicado lately.

[jespah]

New works ... coming soon ...!