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Sev Trek: A History
Early in my cartooning career, I had a notebook where I'd doodle any weird idea that came in my head. Once while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, I drew a cartoon spoofing the idealistic, utopian world that takes itself just a little too seriously. At the beginning I did it mostly for my own enjoyment - there was no practical way I could publish Star Trek parody. At the time my cartoons were only being published in newspapers and Sev Trek was a little too special interest to be used by them. Back then when the Internet was still young, I was only published in print newspapers.
After I created my cartoon website, I thought it would be a good opportunity to publish some of my other cartoons so I drew that initial idea - a story called Pus in Boots where Commander Piker is afflicted with a sentient pimple. It quickly became the most popular cartoon on my website with online Trekkies (or is it Trekkers) coming out of the woodworks in droves. I began to think maybe I should draw more of this Sev Trek stuff.
After Pus in Boots, I began the Sev Trek caption contest. I'd draw a single panel cartoon with the final speech bubble missing its punchline. Readers would submit punchlines and at the end of the week, a winner would be chosen and placed into the cartoon. We still run the same weekly contest, with over a decade's worth of weekly contests now archived on the website. Once the Sev Trek comic strip got started, I opened it up for use on other people's web sites (a way to spread the cartoon on the web). That was when Sev Trek really exploded - the Sev Trek equivalent of Zefram Cochrane inventing the warp drive. Suddenly a lot more people were visiting the site and a community began to build around the website.
After several years of Sev Trek, I was contacted by Wally Fields, comedian and voice impersonator. He suggested we combine forces to produce a sci-fi spoof animation. While I liked the idea, I had no experience in animation so we asked online for animators. 3D animator Andrew Simpson joined the project. After a few short animations, we decided to try something a little more ambitious - a longer animation based on the original Pus in Boots storyline. Over the course of production, we recruited crew members from all over the world including USA, Australia and Brazil. Ultimately, the project took 2 years to produce a 41 minute film now released on video and DVD.
Currently, Sev Trek continues to thrive online as well as being published in newspapers throughout Australia (and one paper in Fiji).
