Several companies have been licensed to publish Star Trek Comics, DC had the license from 1984 to 1996 and used it well. Gaspar Saladino lettered many of the covers for their Star Trek comics, but none of the stories inside. On the first issue, above, he did the top blurb which uses open letters with some shapes that echo the logo.
Another top blurb by Saladino, and he also lettered the creator credits under the logo, which were too thin to print well and should have been bolder or larger.
Two word balloons and a caption tell the story. The color in WAR makes it a bit hard to read, but that was not Gaspar’s choice.
On this busy cover there wasn’t much room for lettering, but Gaspar did what he could.
More room here, and the Saladino balloons add drama.
This caption gets a lot of small open letters into play and adds emphasis by making the first and last words larger.
The alien enemy on this cover has a special balloon style by Gaspar, made more effective by the color choices.
This blurb works well because of contrasts in size and style. Note how DOOMSDAY gets smaller on the right to help emphasize BUG.
The two classic themes of literature are handled well in this Saladino banner caption, abetted by contrast from the ampersand.
My favorite blurb from this series, it has so much personality and style, and I can hear Bones saying it. DC’s first Star Trek series ended with issue #56.
There were several Annuals, Gaspar did only this one banner.
DC began a new series in 1989, but Gaspar lettered only two covers for it that I’m sure about, one is above. There are a few more he might have done that I’m not sure about, so won’t count them. I wouldn’t be sure about this one except for the shape of THE.
There’s no mistaking Saladino’s style on the word MAD on this cover.
DC also did a series for this spinoff TV show, and Saladino lettered just two of the covers. On this blurb I like the way the A’s echo the logo in the first line.
The style of this blurb is again unmistakeably Saladino, and I like the creative letter joining in FERENGI, nicely contrasted by the first line.
To sum up, I found Saladino lettering on these covers:
STAR TREK (1984): 1-4, 6, 9-14, 16-18, 20, 22-26, 29-36, 38, 40-41, 45, 48, 53-54 and ANNUAL #1
STAR TREK (1989): 2, 20, ANNUAL #2
STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION: 14-15
That’s 41 in all. Other articles in this series and more you might like are on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.