Lots of great stuff this week on the internets, covering a wide variety of my geeky interests. Here’s a few of them to occupy you ‘til Monday.

STAR TREK CONTINUITY: to celebrate the release of J. J. Abrams new Star Trek movie, let’s revisit some classic Star Trek continuity, courtesy of Steve Ahlquist at Forces of Geek. (Did I mention that’s one of my favorite blogs?) He works his geek-magic on the continuity of the original series, the Gold Key Star Trek comic books, Vulcan poetry from Star Trek fanzines, James Blish’s novelizations and even Star Trek merchandise. Even if you only click the link to see Sky Diving Parachutist Mr. Spock, you have to visit.

HOWARD CHAYKIN: One of Howard Chaykin’s most recent pieces of work didn’t make it in the American edition of Christian Moerk’s debut novel, Darling Jim. At the author’s request – he’s a big fan, especially of Chaykin’s American Flagg! - Howard created an illustration for Moerk’s book. You can see a snippet of the excised art at the link where there’s a link to the much larger full-sized version. Thanks, GalleyCat!

THE BAT & ZORRO: Over at Bookgasm, writer Doug Bentin gives a great backstory to the pulp character The Bat along with his review of a new collection of the old adventures. Says Doug: “Pulp historian Will Murray, the editor of THE BAT STRIKES AGAIN AND AGAIN! thinks that the writer behind The Bat stories was Johnston McCulley, the ex-newspaperman who created Zorro in 1919.” And since we all know that McCulley’s Zorro was a huge inspiration for Bob Kane’s Batman, it makes this historical nugget even more fascinating.

GOOD ADVICE: I don’t know who this is, but I agree with it.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: He would have made a great super-hero. Curse you, John Wilkes Booth!

NOT COMICS: If Chrysler had made these to ride on instead of the lame Sebring, we’d all be better off.

JOHN BUSCEMA: Just some pretty John Buscema artwork, barbarians, Conan and Tarzan, oh, and slave girls.

WONDER WOMAN: If you’ve ever wondered how to create a Wonder Woman pin-up in Photoshop, wonder no more.

ULTRAVERSE: From October, 1993, here’s an article on the launch of Malibu Comics’ Ultraverse by writer Steve Ginsberg that ran in the Los Angeles Business Journal and talks about the company advertising on television and the cost of advertising in the pages of an Ultraverse comic book with the hope of creating a nice revenue stream. That’s not quite how it worked out…

That’s all – have a great weekend and don’t forget to see the new Star Trek movie!

(Art: Cover to Prime Ashcan by Boris Vallejo. ©Marvel Comics)