Star Trek Comics Weekly #135

An ongoing discussion of how Star Trek comics provide prequels, sequels, and tie-ins to the episodes and films…

135: Ucuz Fanzin, 2020–2022
The thing to always remember about collecting is that it’s never safe to assume you’ve found all there is to find. I’ve learned this lesson countless times since I began amassing Star Trek comics back in 1984, and I was reminded of it this week thanks to Facebook pal Matthew Gabriel Trushell, who forwarded me some images of what appeared to be pages from a Turkish Star Trek Fotonovel. These caught me off-guard, for the actors in the images were not William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. It took me a moment to recognize what Matthew had sent me—and it was something I’d had no idea existed.

Back in 1973, a low-budget science fiction film was released in Turkey called Turist Ömer Uzay Yolunda, though it’s colloquially famous among fans under the title Turkish Star Trek. The movie starred Sadri Alışık as Ömer the Tourist, a recurring character who appeared in at least ten Turkish comedies starting in 1963, when he debuted in Helal Olsun Ali Abi. Though a supporting character in that first outing, the genial hobo proved popular and was soon spun off into his own series of movies—one of which brought him to the bridge of the starship Enterprise.

Turist Ömer Uzay Yolunda was basically an adaptation of the classic Star Trek episode “The Man Trap,” but with a Turkish cast and some minor spelling changes to character names. These included Erol Amaç as Mr. Spak, Cemil Şahbaz as Kaptan Kirk, Ferdi Merter as Doktor McCoy, Füsun Olgaç as Uhura, Yılmaz Şahin as Scoty, Nuri Uğur as Sulu, Necip Koçak as Darnell, Oytun Şenal as Green, Elif Pektaş as Jenice [Rand], Şule Tınaz as Nancy Crater, and Kayhan Yıldızoğlu as Profesör Crater.

The story adheres closely to that of “The Man Trap,” but with some plot changes here and there. For example, Nancy transforms into sexy Vulcan woman Ti-Pau to seduce Spak (a disturbing choice of names, as T’Pau from “Amok Time” was the elder Vulcan matriarch of Spock’s own family), while Kirk battles androids, a Gorn-like creature, and even Spak, “Amok Time”-style. The main change, though, is what brings the hobo into the Star Trek world: when Nancy kills several Enterprise crewmen, the professor snags Ömer from the past, intending to blame him for the Salt Vampire’s murders.

If this all sounds silly, there’s a good reason for it: it is silly. In fact, Ömer, when whisked out of his era, is on the verge of being forced into a shotgun wedding. But silliness aside, Ömer Uzay Yolunda represents a fascinating period in Star Trek‘s history. By 1973, The Original Series had been off the air for four years and The Animated Series was picking up where that show had left off. Otherwise, the franchise was just a canceled cult classic. So the fact that a Star Trek film was in theaters at that time, six years prior to the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture—albeit an unlicensed film, in another country, which ripped off an existing episode—was rather cool.

It was also rather prophetic, as The Motion Picture would likewise repurpose another episode, “The Changeling,” though with far greater effects and acting than those featured in the Ömercomedy. What it wasn’t was unprecedented, for the Turkish film industry also produced knockoffs in that era based on James Bond, Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Frankenstein, Spiderman, The Exorcist, The Karate Kid, First Blood (Rambo), and countless other properties. Turkish Star Trek may seem like a nutty idea, but it was just part of a long tradition.

Back in the 1980s, I used to come across VHS bootlegs of Turkish Star Trek playing at comic shops and science fiction conventions, alongside The Star Wars Holiday Special, Kiss Meets the Phantom, and other low-budget fare lacking official releases. I never expected to come across a comic book based on this loony piece of celluloid, yet thanks to Matthew, that’s what happened this past week. You see, it turns out a serialized comic adaptation of Turist Ömer Uzay Yolunda appeared a few years ago in the pages of Ucuz Fanzin, a Turkish pop-culture magazine published by Güven Erkin Erkal, the title of which, rather amusingly, translates into English as Cheap Fanzine.

Eight issues of that magazine (well, of the current version—a same-named publication was produced in 2014) have been released from 2020 to date, the most recent in 2022. While I’ve not been able to confirm this yet, it seems the adaptation spans at least several of those eight issues, apparently six pages per chapter. Like the classic Star Trek Fotonovels, as well as Germany’s Gong magazines and IDW’s Star Trek: New Visions, the Ucuz Fanzin adaptation was created using stills from the movie, making it the latest example of that unique Star Trek artform known as photo-comics.

Having not yet tracked down a set of Ucuz Fanzin, I can’t say how faithful the adaptation is to the film, but from the sample pages provided, one thing is clear: these issues need to end up on my shelves. As a comic based on a foreign-made Star Trek theatrical film, they represent a unique corner of Trek collecting, and they will be mine. Oh, yes, they will be mine. In the meantime, come back next week when I’ll be discussing discussing IDW’s Star Trek: The Next Generation miniseries Terra Incognita.

Looking for more information about Star Trek comics? Check out these resources:

• The Complete Star Trek Comics Index, by yours truly
• The Star Trek Comics Checklist, by Mark Martinez
• The Wixiban Star Trek Collectables Portal, by Colin Merry
• New Life and New Civilizations: Exploring Star Trek Comics, by Joseph F. Berenato
• Star Trek: A Comics History, by Alan J. Porter

Rich Handley has written books about Planet of the Apes, Back to the Future, and Watchmen, as well as licensed Star Wars and Planet of the Apes fiction, and he edited 70 volumes of Eaglemoss’s Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection. Rich co-edited Titan’s Scribe Award-nominated Planet of the Apes: Tales from the Forbidden Zone; nine Sequart anthologies discussing Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Hellblazer, Stargate, and classic monsters; and four Crazy 8 Press anthologies about Batman and (now) the Joker. He has contributed essays to DC’s Hellblazer: 30th Anniversary Celebration; IDW’s Star Trek and Star Wars comic-strip reprint books; BOOM! Studios’ Planet of the Apes Archive hardcovers; Sequart anthologies about Star Trek and Blade Runner; ATB Publishing’s Outside In line exploring Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, The X-Files, Twin Peaks, and Babylon 5; and a Becky Books anthology covering Dark Shadows.