William Shatner, A to Z

At Book Expo this spring, I was standing at the Quirk Books booth when one of their staffers asked me, "Christopher Walken or William Shatner?" When I responded the latter, with great enthusiasm, they gave me a button. A button? It took a bit of cajoling/begging to get the book it was promoting, "The Encyclopedia Shatnerica: Millennium Edition." (Author Robert Shnakenberg has written a similar Walken book).

"The Encyclopedia Shatnerica," updated from its original 1998 edition, is an admiring, amusing, perhaps disturbingly well-researched catalog of all things Shatner, illustrated and organized alphabetically from "Acting" to "Zmed, Adrian." Captain James T. Kirk, the character Shatner played on "Star Trek," looms, in his yellow velour-shirted glory, over the book. Shatner's other roles, other careers (singing, writing, raising horses) get some attention. But it's unquestionable that Shatner's Shatnerian persona came into focus around Kirk, and that those few years playing James Tiberius in the late 1960s are at the core of his enduring legacy.

Shatner has continued to embrace "Star Trek" -- today, on his website, you can buy action figures of him and the other "Star Trek" crew, or preorder a phaser-and-communicator two-pack (with working lights and sounds from the original series!). For Shatner, Kirk works. Shatner even co-wrote 10 "Star Trek" books.

He's a prolific author, writing (or co-writing) more than 30 books, including an autobiography, "Up Till Now," published in May. But that's not his latest: Some of his science fiction books are being turned into comic book series, due to hit stores in March 2009. "This is not a licensing arrangement, this will be me involved very directly throughout the process," he told Hero Complex, our comics blog. "I loved comics as a kid. I used to sit under the sheets with a flashlight and read Superman when I was 6 in Montreal, and now, with the comics as they are today, it’s thrilling, really.”

When he's not reading comics, the 77-year old actor can be seen on "Boston Legal;" he's been nominated for a fourth Emmy for the role (he's won once). Whether or not he gets a statuette at the ceremony next week will be among the updates in the next edition of "The Encyclopedia Shatnerica."

--Carolyn Kellogg

2007 photograph of William Shatner by David Sprague for the Los Angeles Times.

Comments

[A.L. Hern]

Sorry, Carolyn, but as the photo of the new Shatner compendium proves incontrovertably, you mangled the title, turning "Shatnerica" into "Shaternica."

PS: I doubt I'll be reading any more of your columns, as I refuse to patronize the pieces of Times writers can't muster the courtesy to link their office e-mail addresses to their bylines (as so many Times staffers do).

You should be willing to receive direct responses to your work, pro or con; remaining incommunicado sends the message that the cons are just too, too much to bear...

[Carolyn]

Hi DL! Thanks for your careful eye. Our copyeditors didn't catch the misspelling that you did. It is now corrected.

I'm not incommunicado at all! You -- and anyone else -- can e-mail me any time at jacketcopyla (at) gmail.com.