Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Classic Battlestar Galactica Returns

Maybe this is common knowledge and I've just not been paying attention, but Dynamite Entertainment is publishing a new comic based on the 70's Battlestar Galactica. It'll probably be out this summer.

I'm happy about this. The new version's great (what I've been able to catch without cable, anyway), but I never quite got over Starbuck's sex-change.

They are also publishing a series based on the new version starting this May. Newsarama just had an update on it.

I forgot all about this in my Summer Without Comics. I got issues #1 and #2 this week.

The covers by Dave Dorman are gorgeous, although the second one's a little cheesecakey in a pulp sort of way. I liked the interior art, too. The liknesses aren't often exact, but it's nice.

The story's good, although the dialogue kind of stiff, but it was in the, show, too. I've read a lot of complaints about this series being set during the original show, but I think it was the right choice, for a couple of storylines at least. I want to see that the creative team can handle these characters as they were before they start making changes. It's also kind of nice to see Serina again, and maybe we'll see what Athena was doing during the second half of the season. (I can hope, anyway. )

One advantage of doing stories set early on is that it's quite accessable to new readers and ones that don't remember much about the original series. You don't have to have seen the show to understand what's going on.

Am I the only fan of the original series? I know it's corny, but I find it quite endearing.

I've found out that the artist on this series isn't allowed to use the likenesses of the actors. That raises my opinion of the art a lot, since for some reasaon it's still feels like the characters.

I just found out there's going to be a post season 1 mini-series out in February. It'll be written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach formally from Lost and Medium. Newsarama has an interview here. J G-M was one of the Lost writer/producers who interacted most with the fans at thefuselage.com. He also seems to have respect for both Battlestar Galactica and comics as a medium, so I'm really looking forward to this.

profh is a big fan. I loved it at the time, and upon occassion don't mind catching the odd repeat, but I don't seek it out like I do the new one.

I'm glad it's halfway decent, for what it's worth.

The original BG was a decent enough concept, but it was sunk by some really bad writing.

Even as a kid, some of it just made me squirm. I see it as more wasted potential than anything.

"profh is a big fan."

Hey-- that's ME!


"The original BG was a decent enough concept, but it was sunk by some really bad writing. Even as a kid, some of it just made me squirm. I see it as more wasted potential than anything."

You bet your A**! BG was NEVER anywhere as good as Glen Larson's earlier series, McCLOUD. I know. I'm watching my McCLOUD tapes again, and DAMN-- even the "so-so" episodes are BETTER than most of what I see on TV today-- or then. In fact, even when the writing was "off", the show still rose above the pack. That really says something. By comparison, with BG, I know the networks, coupled with that period being the height of the "anti-violence on tv" mania, really interfered with virtually every single thing they ever tried to do... but even so, that doesn't account for the BAD writing, BAD directing, and even BAD acting at times on the part of otherwise talented actors!

If you put yourself in the right frame of mind, though, a few of them-- "The Living Legend"-- "War Of The Gods"-- "Baltar's Escape" (currently my favorite ep.)-- and "The Hand Of God" (the season finale) show that the series COULD be good, and had potential. (Mostly wasted potential, whcih is what hurts so much.)


To read MY idea of the 25th episode, go here...

http://www.webspawner.com/users/zodiaccomics/2230.html

LOL Good work.

I actually discovered the series through the books, so the bad acting and directing didn't have much impact on my opinion. I haven't even seen all the episodes yet. Maybe that's why I'm not annoyed with the art on the new comics not being acurate. It kind of reminds me of the art on the second book, actually.

I agree that the concept was better than the final product, that's why I'm excited about these comics. I've watched a few of the episodes from the new series (I only recently realized it was finally airing on a station I got), and while it's better than the original on almost every level, it doesn't seem to capture the grandeur of the original. Or the fun.

The MAIN difference I see between the 2 versions is, the original, despite a pointlessly downbeat concept (I really was not looking forward to liking it as much as I grew to), had a LOT of terrific actors and likeable characters-- but was overwhelmed by often-bad writing. The redo, which started out, in my eyes, with NO likeable characters AT ALL, and a relentlessly grim, downbeat air about it (the sort I don't think they were allowed to have on the old show), has repeatedly blown me away with DAMN GOOD WRITING. I genuinely came to like the new version IN SPITE of itself, and after about about dozen episodes found myself being repeatedly ASTONISHED at how even the worst characters on the show were being written so well, and slowly growing and evolving. For awhile there I would never have believed even Adama would "grow up"-- but he did. Hell, even Baltar began to impress me after awhile. (Cain, meanwhile, I wanted DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!!! --and was shocked that even SHE began to turn around-- but, too late, just before someone blew her brains out.)

Of course, the last year, whenever someone says "The best show on television!!!" I respond... "Second best." (DOCTOR WHO has been so good every single episode it makes even the REALLY GOOD scripts of the old show seem lame by comparison. Wow...)

That's good to know. I'm still back on season 1, I think. Helo just found out Sharon is cylon and Baltar just became vice president.

I found this last night on cylon.org. No wonder there were problems with the original. The stuff on the proposed 2nd season is interesting, too, if it's legit (and I have no reason to think it isn't.) Some of it's good, some of it's horrible, but it sounds like they managed to hire Isaac Asimov as a consultant. Ah, what could have been...

Damn, that's a lot of Ralph McQuarrie art! I have (I think) all 3 of McQuarrie's STAR WARS "portfolios", but to my knowledge, they never put out one for BG. I'd actually forgotten he was involved, along with Frank Frazetta, who did at least 4 promotional posters (which turned up in TV GUIDE).

I notice also the unfilmed script "The Mutiny" has elements in it that made up this past season-ending cliffhanger! (Never throw away any ideas.)

I think Frank Frazetta did the cover for book two, shown here, but I can't remember why I think that.

NO image was coming up there (for me) but I did find it at Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/Cylon-Death-Machine-Battlestar-Galactica/dp/0425055183


"The Cylon Death Machine", it says, was the novelization of "The Gun On Ice Planet Zero". Yep, that's FRAZETTA, the LEFT half of the original poster he did promoting the original 3-hour story (which makes it odd they used the image on the 2nd book). The right half of the painting (which presumably became the back of the paperback, the image was flopped) features the Galactica, though it hardly looks anything like what was seen on the tv show! I long had the idea that since the 12 Battlestars each came from different planets, and were so huge they probably took many years apiece to build (if not decades) that the designs probably weren't uniform (even if what we saw were, because it was difficult enough for the model-makers to build just ONE ship and change the name-plates).

The uniforms Frazetta used in that painting also bore virtually no resemblance to the ones on the show-- ESPECIALLY that number Athena was wearing, which was a LOT sexier and looked like it would have fit on an episode of CHARLIE'S ANGELS!


I've only seen 4 Frazetta paintings, which were used in TV GUIDE to promote the following episodes:

1 - BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (eps. 1-3)
2 - LOST PLANET OF THE GODS (pt.1 / ep.4)
3 - LOST PLANET OF THE GODS (pt.2 / ep.5)
4 - WAR OF THE GODS (pt.2 / ep.17)

Anybody know of any others?

Yep, that's the cover on mine.

That's interesting. Lost Planet of the Gods was novelized as The Tombs of Kobal, but I seriously doubt that's a Frazetta painting on the cover of my edition.

At least he got the chracter's hair right on the cover, in the first novelization Athena was a blonde and Cassiopeia was a brunette. Athena got a lot more to do in the early novels (which is why she's my favourite character) than she did in the tv series, too, and the Cylons were reptilian. Grillo-Marxuach seems to be using organic Cylons (although the plague that was mentioned could be a computer virus, I suppose), too. I hope that means he's going to use more Athena.

I can never figure why they'd change the names of stories between one version and another. DOCTOR WHO also used to do that a lot. Must confuse a lot of fans trying to find both versions of the same story.

In this case, the novelization of "LOST PLANET" came out after the one for "ICE PLANET ZERO". Go figure.


http://www.amazon.com/Battlestar-Galactica-Classic-Tombs-Kobol/dp/074345815X/sr=1-12/
qid=1164942408/ref=sr_1_12/002-2986072-3661651?ie=UTF8&s=books

Here 2 versions are posted-- the original (a painting of Apollo & Starbuck) and the reprint (the BG, which looks very much like the painting that was used on Marvel's "Super Special" (which I never found a copy of) and which served as the basis for the drawing on the "Treasury Edition" version OF the "Super Special". ANYBODY have any idea who did this painting of the Galactica?? (And does anyone actually have a copy of the magazine-format of that "Super Special"? Was it, in fact, ever put out?)


For TV GUIDE, Frazetta did 2 paintings for "LOST PLANET". Part 1 featured the all-girl pilot squad. Part 2 was called "Pharaoh's Tomb" and had Apollo, Athena & Adama in a MUCH spookier-looking tomb than ever appeared on the show, facing 2 REALLY spooky-looking characters, who NEVER appeared on the show at all!

I always figured "consistency" should be an important part of merchandising and marketing-- but, I guess a lot of people DON'T!

Now, here's the painting used on the 1st novelization, as well as the soundtrack album...

Battlestar Galactica (Mass Market Paperback)

Battlestar Galactica Classic: The S...ica (Paperback)) (Mass Market Paperback)

Here they reused Frazetta's 1st painting on a reissue of the 1st book. But they messed up on the lettering...

They never had a consistent logo back in '78-- between the tv episodes, the comics, the posters, etc., there were at least 4 different "BG" logos! Absurd. Here, they decided to use the one from the TV episodes themselves-- but didn't bother to think about how it looks spalled right on top of that painting. (Hard to read!) I put together my own "custom" music CD covers a lot, and think about this kind of thing all the time! (Yep-- people get paid GOOD money to do work that BAD.)

Rush jobs. That's what doomed Galactica right from the start.

It's a crime. If they'd run the first 7 hours like they intended (the 3-hour pilot, "Lost Planet" and "Ice Planet Zero"), then waited several months before running anything else, it might not have self-destructed in the ratings so quickly. By doing those 4 one-hour stories, and running 2 before and 2 after "Ice Planet", by the time they got to "The Living Legend" (which is where the show finally GOT GOOD!) they'd lost most of their potential audience.


In a slightly related item, what blows my mind is how really, REALLY BAD the 2-hour pilot of McCLOUD was compared to virtually EVERY OTHER episode they ever made. That was my favorite show for 6 straight years in the 70's, yet when I finally managed to see the pilot (I found the show near the end of the 1st season) I was disappointed. Over the years, it's gotten WORSE every time I watch it. The 3-hour BG pilot wasn't that bad. So imagine how good BG could have gotten... if it only had gotten a chance.

If the show had survived long enough to see the end of the "family viewing time" and all the anti-violence censorship nuts, who knows what it might have evolved into? They really tried to put the series on at the WORST possible time in all of television history. (THE NEW AVENGERS-- already cancelled in England by then-- was imported the same year. CBS ran it at 11:30 PM because it was considered "too violent" for prime time. Anyone who's seen an episode of it knows how absurd that claim was. Of course, it was my favorite show that year, by a MILE.)

DAMN long links! I edited my posts to make it easier to read these things. (If you want to follow the links now, you have to copy-and-paste both lines together into the top of your browser.)

It's amazing that a show that lasted such a short time has still got fans after all this time. I can't believe some of the books are still in print. It sure made an impression on people. It's nice to hear that the best episodes come latter in the series. I haven't seen them yet. (I'm hoping for them for Christmas.)

I read someplace that issue #1 came in 118 on the sales charts. I haven't looked the details up yet, though. That's not a great start, but I think this series is more likely to get of it's sales through collected editions.

While I might have considered myself the show's #1 fan back in the early 80's, I hadn't seen most of the episodes SINCE then. Too painful, maybe. But over the last year or so, I've caught a number of them during the Sci-Fi Channel's daytime marathons. one thing I've noticed is, although Sci-Fi definitely cuts shows, they run BG MUCH better than my local Philly station did when THEY did reruns way back then. Channel 17 used to leave in the coming attractions at the beginning and end of the show, and the flashbacks at the beginning of 2-parters-- but they'd cut the actual story. On Sci-Fi, I've seen some scenes I haven't seen since it was first-run (more than a year before i got my 1st VCR).

"LOST PLANET OF THE GODS" is what my friend Jim would call an "old-fashioned" 2-parter; that is, it feels like 2 stand-alone stories that are connected, rather than a single stretched painfully to fit 2 hours. The 1st half is a joke-- pilots get sick, so they're all kinds of "humor" about an ALL-WOMAN fighter squadron to replace them. The 2nd half, on Kobol, is much better... and what surprised me on seeing it again was how DEVIOUS Baltar was. "It looks as though Baltar's plan has failed... whatever that plan may have been.", says Lucifer (Jonathan Harris in one of his best roles, I feel). It looked like Baltar GENUINELY wanted to double-cross the Cylons (who had double-crossed him when HE double-crossed his own people in ep.1), but Adama wasn't hearing any of it, and before you know, Baltar almost gets killed because Lucifer ordered an attack ahead of time. I suspect the writers were trying to make up their minds, from episode to episode, just how long Baltar would stay alive or not! After this one, he seemed to take ever-increasingly glee at the thought of killing Adama-- even though, once the humans were gone, how long did he really think he'd be left alive?

"THE LIVING LEGEND" broke the mold of 70's adventure shows. It introduced Commander Caine (Lloyd Bridges) and his daughter Sheba (Anne Lockhart-- ANOTHER Lost In Space connection, sort of-- heh). When it first aired, I figured the story would end with Caine either dead, or disappeared. Well, I was right on one of those counts. But the surprise was Sheba joining the cast as a regular. This had NEVER happened (to my knowledge) in the MIDDLE of a tv season before! Suddenly, the "big story" actually began to develop-- story by story-- which made it less like a typical tv show, and more like a (gasp) Marvel Comic!

This continued in "WAR OF THE GODS" (another Glen Larson script that, while flawed, showed just how ambitious he could be when he tried). Count Iblis turns Baltar over to Adama as a prisoner-- and it's NOT just for one episode! By story's end, Iblis is gone, but the fleet suddenly has in their possession the direct course heading for Earth!

The whole time the show was on, I kept thinking they'd have done much better if they'd focused on the "soap-opera" and less on the "space battles"-- especially since they had such a BIG cast (years before such a thing became common on tv) and the "effects" were so expensive. That's why my "GALACTON 2230" comic tribute was about 90% or more character stuff. I think I managed to use EVERY regular from the show, proving there's no such thing as a bad character. (I actually had some of the most fun with the kid and the dog-- GO FIGURE!!)

I agree that the characters are the best part of the show, that's what grabbed me right from the start. I think that's where the new series has gone wrong for a lot of fans. I wouldn't want to do without the space battles, though. (I wish I could find a viper/x-wing type game for a system I have.)

I just rewatched "Lost Planet of the Gods" a couple of days ago, and I thought Baltar was a blast. You really couldn't tell what side he was on, even at the end. The first part was really sexist, I know, but I love the conversation Apollo and Starbuck have about curtains when they're feeling left out.

I finally found the Athena fanfic site last night. I know noone here cares about that, but I've been trying to find it for days, so I've got to tell someone I've succeeded. I thought it was gone for good.

There's a new article about Cylon Apocolypse up at newsarama. Strangely, it includes the first six pages of script. I don't think I've ever seen that done before. It's still looking good, anyway.

Oh, and thanks to whoever spotlighted the cover for #5.