Star Trek: Lower Decks

Star Trek: Lower Decks (2022) #1-3

by Ryan North, Chris Fenoglio (Illustrator)

Ensign, report to the bridge! Board the U.S.S. Cerritos for a mission to the enigmatic Qvanti system as the hit Paramount+ animated series comes to comics!

Captain Carol Freeman leads her crew on an expedition aimed to build bridges and advance Federation technology, but she and the away team quickly suspect that the planet and its people are not all what they seem… Meanwhile, the crew in the lower decks take to the holodeck for some much-needed recreational time—until a bloodthirsty visitor decides to join in on their games. Can Boimler, Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford save the ship from the likes of Dracula?

Star Trek: Lower Decks unites New York Times-bestselling and Eisner-winning writer Ryan North (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) and comics artist extraordinaire Chris Fenoglio (Goosebumps, Star Wars Adventures).

Genres: Comics, Star Trek, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Humor, Fiction, Media Tie In

120 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2023

About the author

Hi, I'm Ryan! I was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 1980 and since then have written several books. You can read my Wikipedia page for more, or check out my author site at RyanNorth.ca!

I'm the author of the webcomic Dinosaur Comics (that's the comic where the pictures don't change but the words do, it's better than it sounds and I've also done crazy things like turn Shakespeare into a choose-your-own-path adventure, write a comic for Marvel about a girl with all the powers of a squirrel, or mess up walking my dog so badly it made the news.

I'm working on more stuff as we speak, hopefully it's good

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was looking forward to a nice little adventure with the characters from the Star Trek: Lower Decks animated series, but then Ryan North offered up a holodeck malfunction story, and hologram malfunction stories are my least favorite Star Trek episodes. It's a real shame, since North captured the tone of the show and the voices of the characters fairly well.

North also tried to use the snarky little footnotes at the bottom of most pages that worked so well in Squirrel Girl, but that trick fell flat here and seemed out of place for the Star Trek franchise.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Lower Decks so much! This was a very fun little run that was like reading an episode of the show, so, you know, hilarious! I did not expect to find Dracula on board the Cerritos, but weirder things have happened to the crew! Also really loved the footnotes!

[Liv · Rating 5 out of 5]

dracula? on star trek? and i don't even have to go to ao3 to find it????????? i am living the dream

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Star Trek: Lower Decks

The 'Cerritos' is sent to the Qvanti homeworld to explore a relationship between the Federation and a vastly superior race. Meanwhile, Mariner accidentally creates a sentient version of Count Dracula, who cannot be deleted due to Starfleet's new directives concerning potentially sentient holograms.

The artwork is series perfect and the sense of humour oozes off the page but, as ever, there are plenty of 'Star Trek' style serious questions to explore in this excellent collection.

[Sarah AF · Rating 5 out of 5]

Opening the first page and immediately being presented with a nod to The Way to Eden (/"the one with the space hippies" as it's known in our house)? Lower Decks perfection. To then jump straight into a Dixon Hill skit on the holodeck? Star Trek perfection.

Lower Decks is so sharp yet tongue-in-cheek with its writing that it would be easy to veer into parody, but this captured everything that makes the series so wonderful. It had all those little nods to the Star Trek of old while bringing to the fore the camaraderie between the crew and the fun-infused action that makes each episode (and now comic) fly by.

This had better be the first of many!

[Chris Townsend · Rating 3 out of 5]

At this stage of my life, I'm not particularly in the mood for comic books. I would much rather read a novel. However, if I want more Lower Decks, this seems to be the only way to get it. As far as that goes, the story was just kind of okay. It's not overly funny but amusing enough, with lots of references to older episodes. If it were a TV episode, it would be about average.

[Caleb Dorsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a solid first bunch of Lower Decks comics. The first issue of the three had some really solid Lower Decks jokes but the humor hit the mark less and less as things went on. Dracula was an interesting holodeck “villain” in the vein of Moriarty and I like how his arc played out. The subtitles at the bottom were funny and unique at first, then became overplayed, and ultimately annoying.

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun story that got the feel of the show spot-on.

[SamB · Rating 1 out of 5]

The wacky comedy of Lower Decks should translate perfectly to the comic-book format, but... not so much. Mainly this just felt like hard work. And stupid. A combination of the two. It's a shame, because the underlying mystery with the aliens-of-the-week is actually quite interesting, but it completely disappears for the middle third of the book and is then wound up very quickly.

The book also utilises ironic footnotes, which are fun the first couple of times, but then just become overused and tiresome - especially towards the end where they appear on nearly every page and are inconsistent as to whether they're a character's unsaid thoughts or the authorial voice.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually don't like comics or graphic novels, I always find them difficult to get into. But I can find an exception for releases like this, which is based off an animated show and has an art style that exactly matches what's on screen. Reading this feels like getting to watch a lost of episode of Lower Decks and it's so much fun. The comedy is there, the pacing is there, and you can hear the voices in your head.

As a bonus, this story even has a sentient holographic Dracula who is immediately entertaining.

The writer has an odd peculiarity of including notes at the bottom of most pages which are kind of like an in-character commentary - I'm not sure if I liked them or not, but they were usually funny.

[Jeremiah Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked how the art was spot on and the writer captured the characters’ voices. I think the book’s cover unfortunately spells it out “rarely going where no one has gone before.” Nothing new or surprising here.

However, our ten year old reader liked it, one note: “their eyeballs are too big.”

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Silly and fun, and the characters feel accurate to the show. The artwork is perfect and the story was pretty entertaining. I don't think it was quite as much fun as Squirrel Girl, but I still enjoyed it.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an absolute delight to read and the only thing wrong with it is that I want it to be a real episode of the show because it is so perfect!

[Boyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is literally my two favorite things combined, and bonus: it was HILARIOUS. 10/10 I now need to find the other two.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The comic I never knew I needed. So funny and endearing

8/10

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unterhaltsame Geschichte über einen schlauen Vampir auf dem Holodeck.

[Tamara Morrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

If you like the show you will like this comic series

[Eran Weiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

it's fine, if you want more lower decks

[Peter Lin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Ryan North. He is easily one of the best comic book writers in the comedy genre, which makes his choice to write a Lower Decks comic an absolute stroke of genius.

You can tell North is having a great time writing this book - he leaves an almost excessive amount of footnotes - an average of one for every other page. The adventure itself is the perfect blend of Lower Decks and The Next Generation episodes, which makes it an even more satisfying experience than the show’s actual episodes.

Definitely a must-read for any Lower Decks or Ryan North fan, but also a very accessible story for newcomers to both.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

idw’s most recent star trek miniseries was a three-issue arc based in the continuity of the lower decks animated series. the fact that it wasn’t given a separate title like the various discovery and picard miniseries seems to suggest that they're not planning on visiting this series all that often, but hopefully i’m wrong in that assumption.

in the main plot, our main characters accidentally create a sentient holodeck character in the form of count dracula, a la moriarty in tng’s “elementary, dear data” and “ship in a bottle,” but like way funnier because... it’s fucking dracula? anyway this plot is pretty straightforward and gets resolved pretty easily, which is a shame because i kind of wanted to see that dungeon dracky was so excited about.

once it’s resolved, the dracula plot ends up tying back into the comic’s other plot which sees the ship’s senior officers botch a second contact with several of them being taken into custody by the locals. i can’t say this plot left much of an impression on me, but that’s okay, that’s not really what you’re coming to lower decks for most of the time, right?

on the whole i really enjoyed this comic. it felt really in keeping with the tone of the show, and i really enjoyed a lot of the humor in it to the point of actually occasionally needing to stop and read parts of it out loud to my mates whenever they were in the room with me while i was reading it. in addition to the show’s usual brand of humor, they also took advantage of the format by adding little metatextual footnotes from the perspective of characters or an omniscient narrator. i was skeptical of these at first, but a few of them actually made me laugh out loud, and upon reflection it’s nice that they clearly did put some thought into how to adapt the series to another medium.

again this wasn’t mindblowing or anything, but i’m guessing they more or less made it for people who love the show and would appreciate something to whet their appetite during the long wait between seasons, and this certainly works well enough as far as that goes.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Star Trek: Lower Decks” Trade Paperback (IDW, 2023). Writer: Ryan North. Artist: Chris Fenoglio (including the colors, I’m assuming, as no separate color artist credited). Reprints: Star Trek: Lower Decks #1-3 (September 2022 to November 2022). Read: 08/21/23 to 08/30/23. Opinion: Very good. If you like the animated “Star Trek: Lower Decks” Paramount+ series then I think you will like this comic book mini-series. (Although I saw one reviewer on GoodReads give it only two stars because he doesn’t like “holodeck stories”. Oh, well.) The ensigns accidentally create a sentient version of Dracula (that looks exactly like Boimler), similarly to what happened with Moriarty on “The Next Generation” (and, this being “Lower Decks”, they make numerous references to that earlier episode). While this is going on, the captain, chief of security, and doctor all embark on a second contact mission that ends them up, at first, about to be burned at stakes for being “witches”. Then, they are put on trial for (accidentally) violating that planet’s leading government’s own version of the Prime Directive (for their accidental encounter with the planet’s other, primitive, culture). They face execution for it, and a fleet of warships will destroy the Cerritos (if they can’t get out of it). Lots of fun Star Trek in jokes (just like on the series) and the artist does a very good job of making this appear visually like just another episode of the animated series. I gave it four out of five stars on GoodReads. I would like to see IDW do more “Lower Decks” comics.

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another mini-series (this one a mere 3 issues) I wish had been a continuing project is IDW's Star Trek: Lower Decks by Ryan North and Chris Fenoglio. It's just the one storyline, with the bridge crew making Second Contact with a planet that seems centuries away from FIRST, while the Lower Decks characters create a sentient Dracula on the holodeck and have to deal with THAT. It gets the tone of the show, and the characters' personalities, absolutely correct. Not only is the story steeped in Trek philosophy (and not just references), providing comic takes on well-worn tropes, but to make up for the slower pace of a comic compared to a cartoon show these days, there are asides from characters and writer at the bottom of most pages, and a bunch of fake ads, logs and other materials at the back. Huge fun, just like the show, and I can't believe this can't be sustained for the length of the show's existence. It's not like Lower Decks is likely to get very many tie-in novels given its format, so tie-in comics should be Mariner, Boimler and the rest's stomping grounds.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boimler and friends create a sentient vampire, while Captain Freeman tries to avoid a diplomatic incident. Another normal day on the Cerritos...

Stupid good fun. Ryan North's humour fits with the Lower Decks attitude easily, weaving an A and B plot that collide in some truly amusing ways, just like the show. He nails the characters' voices effortlessly, and manages to get everyone in on the action even with only three issues to do it.

Some of the additional notes at the bottom of each page can get a little overblown at times, maybe a few less would have been more impactful, but North does that in a lot of his books so it's to be expected I guess. And the artwork from Chris Fenoglio looks exactly like the show while still having some flair of its own.

Lower Decks fans, report to the Holodeck, because you'll love this.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just like Lower Decks, this collection is packed full of referential Trek humor. And it's entertaining, I laughed out loud reasonably frequently.

And, also just like Lower Decks, the humor is just the window dressing for Space Friends having Magical Adventures In Space, which is the reason I keep coming back.

The art was excellent; it helps that the show is also animated, so there's no need to interpret the characters in comic book style - other Trek comics struggle with that task a lot, because it's genuinely a hard puzzle to figure out.

The writing perfectly captures the tone of the show and the voice of the characters. The footnotes were hilarious. I should dig up that physical Dinosaur Comics (another Ryan North creation) book I have around the house somewhere.

My library did not have this book, but my sister did; her generosity is how I got my hands on it.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Star Trek humor comic sees some D-listers trigger a "Dracula on the holodeck" scenario, even as a ground crew embarks on a mission that accidentally violates the Prime Directive.

Writer Ryan North is always fun, and he has a good time here, particularly with some over-the-top scripting illustrating the Holodeck's anti-sentience protocols. One critique I'd offer, though, is that his characters are typically logical and genial and eager to find a win-win solution to any conflicts they encounter. (Let's call it Squirrel-Girl syndrome.) It can be endearing, but it can also feel "kiddie," and that was my general read here.

It doesn't help that I haven't seen the show this was based on. The art by Chris Fenoglio extends the cartoony vibes, with a Saturday-morning animation style that felt generic to my tastes.

[Karel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great fun. Two good stories that weave well together as well as introducing even more excellent diversity as always seen in Star Trek. I'm thinking specifically of Tanowski, who is a medical officer who presents as a male human (at least their face does) but wears a skirt! I'm nowhere near the biggest star trek fan, but I've never seen any officer wearing a skirt so this was super nice. It also shows how much probably gets censored/removed when making a TV show when compared to a book, podcast of comic!

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Also my long standing crush on Captain Jack Ransom is fed by this comic, so how could I not rate it 5/5.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you know that you can write Dracula into any story and nobody can stop you? This is only one of the many fascinating facts that you'll learn reading Lower Decks. Ryan North wrote this tie-in to the best of the new Star Trek shows, and captures the voices of the characters pretty perfectly. The Cerritos is enroute to a second contact situation allowing the lower deck crew to have some R&R, meaning they're in the holodeck. Unfortunately, by trying to prove that malfunctions are no longer possible they accidentally summon Dracula. Its genuinely really funny without losing the spirit of Star Trek, meaning its a perfect translation of the show.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve never watched the Lower Decks show, but I love Ryan North and I’ve seen every episode of The Next Generation, which gave me more than enough context to pick this up. It’s cute and funny (and a great palate cleanser for me after reading an underwhelming “classic”). It breaks 0% new ground, but it would be unfair to call it derivative because it’s a love letter to Star Trek and it radiates love. Just like in Squirrel Girl, North’s jokes-per-page ratio is insanely high, and his footnotes are often the funniest parts.

[♡*WithLove, Reesie*♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the Lower Decks tv show! Reading this graphic novel I could hear the actors voices. To me, that's how I know the voice actors are incredible in their roles to bring these characters to life.

The art is nice (not mind blowing but the same as the tv show) but it made me want to draw these characters. (I do draw but not in a long time, so this graphic novel's art made me want to start again!)

Only thing I didn't like was the author/narrator end notes/commentary. I eventually just stopped reading them and stayed in the story.

I would read again. I do recommend.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Captures the spirit of the show while pulling the typical spin-off move of not actually affecting the larger universe or the characters too much. A filler episode, then, and, in the tradition of many actual lower decks episodes, one that is a direct reimagining of several episodes of various Trek episodes over the years. This might stray a little closer than the show does to the line between parody and retread, but I'm happy to have any additional Lower Decks content to enjoy, so you'll get no major complaints here.