Whither Goest Trekkies?

At the Inglorious Treksperts booth, Galaxy Con San Jose 2026

It's the end of an era, and a proverbial new beginning

Not to put too fine a point on it, but we've reached the end of a five-year mission. Amazing but true: It's been almost five revolutions around the sun since I began work on my memoir of fandom, after some detours and false starts. It all started with my first appearance on the Inglorious Treksperts podcast, which got the ball rolling on my photo album project, unexpectedly coinciding with the end of my film career... and a new beginning.

After months of development, the first issue of When We Were Trekkies, “Stardate: Zero” debuted in September of 2022. The subsequent nine issues appeared every two months after that—until I completed the series in March of 2024. I've continued to promote my work with two dozen convention appearances and a half-dozen podcasts. Copies are still available in comic shops from coast-to-coast, but my supplies are dwindling. In fact, as of this writing there are fewer than 50 sets in stock, out of a print run of 5500 issues.

Without too much creative accounting, I have broken even on the venture. At least if I don't count my time and effort to create the furshlugginer thing—which was its own reward. But the satisfaction and joy the whole experience has bought me is, as they say, priceless.

Having shared the entire series online, I'm looking for the next segment of Trekkie's long distribution tail. Clearly there are more potential readers out there, but I want to free up my time and effort to create new work. That's where Aggregate Ink! comes in.

I met Eric Gladstone at Comic Arts Los Angeles in December, where he was going table-to-table, pitching his comics distribution service. As a cartoonist and creator himself who has dealt with distribution woes and online piracy, he's motivated to find a solution. His idea was simple: to collect indie comics into a package large enough to interest a major distributor. Now he's partnered with Hoopla, a digital platform that streams movies, music and books — exclusively to public libraries all around the world.

Now anyone with a library card can potentially read When We Were Trekkies, and you can find out if your local institution carries it by visiting the Hoopla site. I’ve created a new colorized edition for digital delivery, with each issue tinted to match the color covers and collected into a single, 222-page PDF. (It's also available for purchase at my shop.) As a big fan of the public library—from even before I could read—this is a proud achievement. It's a relief to know that the story can live on, and possibly earn me a few shekels while I sleep.

I'm hard at work on a new memoir, but I'm also excited by the prospect of revisiting Trekkies as a proper graphic novel. I have a few pages that I'd like to add and a few more that I'd like to redraw and expand, so I'll never say never. Meanwhile, there are a couple more shows on my schedule and a few copies left to sell. Thanks again for all of your support and I'll be back in a week or two with something new!

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You can still read the entire series, a page-a-day on my Patreon and Substack accounts.