This Day in Anthro History: Lieutenant M'Ress and the Caitians

Happy Friday the 13th!  Time for another installment of "This Day in Anthro History"...perhaps not completely holiday-appropriate, but at least it involves a cat...!

On October 13, 1973, the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Survivor" aired for the first time, introducing the world to Lieutenant M'ress and the cat-like alien species known as Caitians.  After all, every self-respecting SF or fantasy universe needs at least one group of cat people, am I right?

Pic from her Memory Alpha entry...

Caitians would later be documented in live action Trek (like the admiral below who appeared in The Voyage Home) and, somewhat unfortunately, seem to have been ported into the new movies' timeline as catgirls with a more human appearance.

See Unnamed Caitians at Memory Alpha...

And while they might be the best-known of the bunch (maybe...), Caitians certainly aren't the only cats to have graced the Trek (and associated) universes over the years.  You can read a little more on this here...

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Thanks for stopping by!  Now, everybody head on over to Halls of the Nephilim and check out what +Justin Isaac has cooked up for release on this Friday the 13th...!

Reboot vs. Remake vs. Requel vs. Revival vs...

You know how sometimes you just feel like making a Venn diagram about something trivial?  I felt that way earlier today.

No real rhyme or reason to the examples I chose.  Maybe someday I'll get really ambitious and try to fill out each section more completely.

I'm not quite sure where Superman Returns should go on here.  I am pretty sure this was just another one of my procrastination tricks.  I'd love any feedback you have, though!

Back to work now...

(Click to embiggen.)

(EDIT:  Oh, I should probably get "Reimagining" on here somewhere, shouldn't I?  I think the whole thing might topple...)

IDW Crossover Sale

As of the time I write this, there's a sale going on for digital versions of various crossover series from IDW Publishing.  I don't know how long it's been running, or how long these sales usually last, but there's some really worthwhile stuff there.  Besides the fact that IDW is the publisher for licensed comics...so they have a great stable of their own to mix together...they've also done some crossovers with DC that are taken straight from a fanboy's Christmas list.  Like this dream series:

Here's the link to the sale at IDW's site, and here's the comiXology link (the .com version) if you prefer that.

Monster Monday: The Mugato

I finally saw Star Trek Beyond yesterday.  (I thought it was pretty good; my initial feeling is that it's better than Into Darkness but not as good as the first reboot film.  Opinions subject to change.)

So, Trek is stuck in my mind today, and that got me thinking about a book from my squandered youth...

In the 7th grade, I won a trivia contest at my school.  Actually, for some reason they randomly asked one trivia question over the intercom, and then awarded a prize to the first student who could make it to the library with the answer.  I think it must have been some sort of national reading day/week or something.  I remember that the question involved Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart."

At any rate, after racing my friend Griff to the library, I was allowed to pick out a prize from a rack of books.  (Griff also got one; the librarian decided that it was only fair to call it a tie.)  I chose The Monsters of Star Trek.

Now, as far as I know, this isn't anything close to a classic of Trek literature.  For a while, however, it was my definitive encyclopedia for the creatures of Star Trek (and I do love how the title uses the word "monsters" rather than "aliens").  While I think the first version had a Gorn on it, I had the second edition picured above, and that guy on the cover, the Mugato, became the quintessential Trek beast to me.

If you're a fan of old toys, you might know the Mugato as the monster that for some unknown reason was put into a funny alien uniform when he was made into an action figure (image from the Mego Museum)...

For today's Monster Monday, I figured I'd whip up some quick stats for the Mugato (for general d20-based gaming...see the GRIND for more info):

Level 6

5 HD

Exceptional Constitution, Superhuman Strength

+1 Defense from natural armor

Attacks:

2 arm strikes (1D damage)

OR

1 horn (1D damage)

OR

1 bite (1D damage + poison)

A victim of a Mugato bite must make a successful saving throw vs. poison/Constitution or become poisoned.  Until they receive appropriate medical care, they will endure 1D damage per hour that passes after the bite.

...

Here are the Mugato's entries at Memory Alpha and Memory Beta.

And finally, here are some great Mugato renderings from DeviantArt that really caught my eye...

mugato

my toon version of mugato from star trek the original series. mugato

Domo Arigato Mr. Mugato

originally posted on my sketchblog: http://bootlegsketch.blogspot.com/2008/04/domo-arigato-mr-mugato.html The Mugato from the original Star Trek series--the version on the left is based on the crea...

Mugato

Blah, blah, blah....... Mugato

Mugato Love

This one spent a while in WIP status, hehe. Wanted to perfect it. Wanna give a shoutout to the peeps at Scifi-meshes.com, who helped me tremendously with all of their comments and suggestions! And ...

Mugato

Disegno a grafite acquarellata - Pubblicato all'interno del LOG 4 - Senato delle Razze - Star Trek Italian Club Mugato