IDW Visits Harlan Ellison’s CITY

First it was Dark Horse giving us The Star Wars, based on George Lucas’ original draft screenplay that eventually became the original Star Wars trilogy. Now, IDW has announced they will publish an adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s original — and Hugo Award winning — teleplay for “The City on the Edge of Forever”.

The classic Star Trek episode is considered one of the best — and it’s even included in TV Guide’s “Top 100 Episodes of All Time” — but as fans know, what actually aired during the Original Series is far different from the original script Ellison turned in, which is also the version that won the Hugo. Of course, at the time Ellison and other prominent science fiction writers were turning in scripts, Star Trek had yet to air, and consequently a lot of scripts didn’t match the tone of the show.

Those changes have been the stuff of legend, and many have wondered just how different the original script was from the one that was produced. Now, working on the project directly with Ellison, IDW is turning the original script into a graphic novel mini-series written by Scott Tipton and David Tipton, with art painted by J.K. Woodward.

“Presenting Harlan Ellison’s brilliant original script for ‘City on the Edge…’ has been a goal of ours since IDW first began publishing Star Trek comics in 2007,” said series editor and IDW Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall. “The episode justifies its position atop ‘best Star Trek episodes’ lists but even it ain’t nuthin’ compared to what Ellison did in his original teleplay. This is truly going to be a Star Trek adventure unlike any other, even to fans who have that beloved episode memorized.”

Harlan Ellison says: “It was a superlative joy of my long life to have worked with Leonard Nimoy, who became my friend, and many others at Star Trek; and an equally heart-happy joy to be working with J.K. and the Tipton Bros. and Chris Ryall on this long-awaited visual of my (humbly, I say it) brilliant original ‘City…’”

Cover art for the series will be provided by Juan Ortiz, who’s Original Series artwork has recently been collected in a book — Star Trek: The Art of Juan Ortiz.

The five-issue series kicks off in June 2014.