At IDW, Group Editor Heather Antos oversees all things Star Trek. So you better believe our Trekkies hearts leapt at the chance to ask her about her work on our favorite Franchise!
We caught up with Antos over email to ask all about her personal history with Star Trek, about garnering the first Eisner Award nomination for the Franchise in 2023, and about the 2024 Eisner Award nominated Star Trek: Day of Blood – Shax’s Best Day.
AVERY KAPLAN: It’s been a long road, getting from there to here. In your own words, can you tell us how your previous editorial experience informs your work at IDW on Star Trek?
HEATHER ANTOS: Oh gosh, how to sum up nearly 10 years of comics publishing to now… okay, ha! I like to think I’m an observant person – that I’ve been able to take with me knowledge and experiences I’ve found beneficial, and also education on what I’ve learned not to do throughout each chapter of my career.
My time in self-publishing taught me how to get my hands dirty in the trenches. I learned as much as I could about each role in the comics producing process. From writing to art to production to marketing…my philosophy has always been that in order to work the most collaboratively with others, it’s crucial to have a respect for the role and be able to speak the language. It’s also helped me step in when necessary.
When I entered the Direct Market, I learned SO MUCH about not just how the direct market works in the realm of retailers and fans, but also how editorial and creative vision drives so much of that. I learned how to not only execute a well-crafted individual issue, but also how each issue functions within its own run…each run within its own group…each group within an entire universe of stories. I learned how good events were crafted… how not so good events were received. I learned what battles to pick, when to ask for forgiveness, and how to really advocate for a team’s vision. I learned how to work with an external partner and how to mesh their needs for a franchise with our needs as a publisher to create the best comics we can… and how to do all of the above and more under budget and on a deadline.
So taking all of that, when I was asked by John Barber (our previous EiC) which of IDW’s licenses interested me the most, Star Trek was the immediate frontrunner. This was a franchise with such a vast history – both in publishing and out – and yet it seemed like no one knew the comics (and some quite good comics at that!) existed. They were being treated as almost an afterthought by the industry as a whole, and I really wanted to change that. Show the whole world just how cool and interesting Star Trek stories can be. I wanted to build a line of comics for comics fans, not just Star Trek fans (while also of course still giving Star Trek fans top notch Trek tales!). I wanted to build our own comics universe that engaged and interacted each other… have the books have real stakes and impacts. Do things they could never do in the shows. And I think we have!
KAPLAN: Can you tell us about any personal history you have with Star Trek?
ANTOS: Star Trek is actually one of the very first shows I ever remember watching growing up as a kid. Reruns of The Next Generation were often on syndication and it was one of the few things my dad watched that I found interesting too! Much like my love of comics, I can’t really remember a time in my life when Star Trek wasn’t a part of it.
KAPLAN: What sort of collaboration does IDW engage in with Star Trek’s licensors? What’s involved in the process of working with Star Trek canon (and beta canon)?
ANTOS: There is nothing that we do that doesn’t go through the fine folks at Paramount (and Secret Hideout when required) multiple times. From high concepts to pitches, outlines to scripts, layouts to pencils and inks and colors, and letters… character designs and cover concepts… it all gets reviewed, discussed, and noted. It’s an extremely collaborative process. We meet once a week via zoom to go over anything art-related that’s come in and go through every page, panel, sketch, you name it, piece by piece. We have multiple email threads going on at any moment discussing any minutia of detail for various projects.
It’s very involved! And it’s what makes the books the quality that they are! Teamwork makes the dreamwork, right?
KAPLAN: We were big fans of Star Trek: Celebrations #1 at The Beat. What went into putting this anthology together? Can we expect another one-shot next year, or are any other one-shots in the cards?
ANTOS: Ahhh, thank you so much! Star Trek: Celebrations has been in the works for a very long, long time and was one of the first projects I pitched when I took over the license.
Star Trek is a franchise long associated with celebrating its more diverse characters and ideologies and it was important to me to continue that in the comics themselves. Doing a one-shot for Pride Month to focus on the Trek characters in the queer community seemed like the most agreed-upon launch for this between both partners (IDW & Paramount) and I’d love to see Celebrations continue to grow to be able to celebrate in other months as well down the line.
KAPLAN: Congratulations on the Eisner Award nomination for Star Trek: Day of Blood – Shax’s Best Day! Am I correct that Star Trek earned its first Eisner Award nomination ever under your editorial guidance last year? Can you tell us about the genesis and execution of the memorable and hopefully soon to be award-winning one-shot Shax’s Best Day?
ANTOS: Thank you so much! When the franchise snagged not one, but its first TWO Eisner nominations last year I was certain it wouldn’t be happening again. I was truly humbled when the announcements were released!
Shaxs’ Best Day started off as a joke, in all honesty. Jackson, Collin, Chis, and my previous editorial assistant at the time, Vanessa, were all at the LA IDW offices where we were breaking down the DAY OF BLOOD event in a two-day writer’s retreat. At the time our pitch for arc two of the flagship series was currently under review with Paramount, including our request to use Shaxs as a member of the crew. And because we weren’t yet confident we would be able to use him in the series, we were careful not to include Shaxs’ as a key factor in any major plot point of the event in case our request was refused.
It became a running joke in the room, “While Sisko and Worf are off to battle Kahless, Shaxs is having his best day fighting fascists!” “While Crusher and Sela argue about what it means to be a hero, Shaxs’ is having his best day ever blowing the warp core.” Etc.
As we were wrapping the two-day room, I turned to my then-boss Jamie S. Rich and asked “Do you think they’d approve it?” And the rest is history. I pitched the idea to Ryan North as he had just wrapped writing the script for Warp Your Own Way and he was all in. Chris Fenoglio, who drew the original Lower Decks miniseries was busy drawing Warp Your Own Way, so I asked legendary artist Derek Charm to join the crew and, well, here we are!
KAPLAN: We are also huge fans of the Star Trek: Lower Decks miniseries and are looking forward to Warp Your Own Way in autumn 2024. Is there anything specific you can tease about this graphic novel?
ANTOS: Warp Your Own Way is truly a labor of love from all involved creatively. I myself was a HUGE fan of “Choose Your Own” titles as a kid and had always wanted to try making one.
After the success of the initial Lower Decks mini series in 2022, I immediately pitched the idea of this OGN and two years of blood, sweat, and tears later… here we are! 200 pages of true Cerritos chaos! Ryan, Chris, Charlie, and Jeff did some of the best work of their careers here… and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that they are only just getting started…
As for the graphic novel itself, be prepared to blow up, get sucked into a blackhole, destroyed by a Greek God, and die to a genocidal maniac many, many times before finding your way out of this kobayashi maru. Did I mention math is involved? It totally is not NOT involved.
KAPLAN: What is your favorite Star Trek series, episode and character? Bonus, perhaps more challenging question: favorite Star Trek comic?
ANTOS: It’s hard to pick an absolute favorite episode, as I’m sure many would agree. But I always say that if I had to pick just ONE episode of Star Trek to represent the entire franchise, I pick Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 2 “Ad Astra Per Aspera.”
Favorite series…. hmmm… It’s a tie between The Original Series, TNG, Lower Decks, or Strange New Worlds. Sorry, can’t narrow it down any further.
Favorite character… Beverly Crusher was my first favorite character next to Princess Leia growing up. Strong redhead not taking shit from her peers? Love it. These days, though, I feel most akin to Mariner. Also Badgey. Badgey is the greatest Star Trek character ever created and I will not be taking any further notes on this.
As for favorite comic…I have to go with Star Trek #400. It holds a very special place in my heart as it was the first Star Trek anything that was the “Heather Antos” vision for the line. The very issue that kicked this whole wild ride off. I’ll forever be grateful for that issue, the folks who believed in it and wanted to take part…the fact that it garnered the franchise’s first ever Eisner nomination in the 50-year span of publishing. I also happen to think it reads well, too!
KAPLAN: Can we expect Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (the series) comics? What other Star Trek comics can readers look forward to in the future?
ANTOS: Now, now, you know I can’t talk about anything we haven’t officially announced yet! What I will say is definitely pay attention to any news coming out of San Diego Comic Con this year. I hear we’re gonna be talking about some exciting things there…
Not to mention the monumental Star Trek #500 that’s coming out in September! It’s quite a feat to reach 500 issues and we couldn’t be more excited for this one. Including some of the new stories we’ll be teasing for the future…
KAPLAN: What would you order from the food replicator?
ANTOS: Probably lots of coffee. Or Pizza Hut breadsticks. Those things are DELICIOUS.
KAPLAN: Is there anything else you’d like me to include?
ANTOS: I think there’s this big misconception about licensed comics out there that you have to be the BIGGEST fan of the brand in order to like the comics… and while that may be true in some instances, I would argue that it’s just simply not true overall – and especially not true for the Star Trek comics.
These are comics that are being made for fans of COMICS first and foremost. If you love stories about grounded and complex characters in surreal and far off places, fighting for the greater good and hope for a better world for all… then these are stories for you. If you love out of this world art, laugh out loud panels, and high impact stakes? Then you’ll love these comics. Period.
Learn more about the IDW Star Trek comics on the publisher website.
Keep up with all of The Beat’s Star Trek coverage here.
Cover image credit: Robby Cook variant for Shax’s Best Day.
Related
Source link
