PAUL KUPPERBERG: A Comic Moment with… LEONARD NIMOY
The celebrated Mr. K tells a great tale on the late, great Mr. Spock’s birthday… — Welcome to columnist Paul Kupperberg’s recurring feature A COMIC MOMENT WITH… Having worked decades in the biz, Paul has so many great, humorous stories to tell, this seemed like a really groovy way to share some of them — especially on birthdays. This time out, it’s the late LEONARD NIMOY, who was born 93 years ago, on March 26, 1931! — By PAUL KUPPERBERG While fact checking some dates online, I came across this (as far as I can determine) uncredited first person account of this Comic Moment on the website Fanlore.org: “The highlight of the second con, called the International Star Trek Convention, was the unannounced appearance of Leonard Nimoy that Sunday. I was on hand as a helper (unpaid volunteer) and, along with future comics writer Paul Kupperberg, was part of the flying V-formation of security to get Nimoy from the entrance to the stage. We then stood in position to form a human wall between shrieking fans and a smiling actor.” Factually true, but not even remotely comic. The Set-up: February 1973. New York’s Commodore Hotel. The International Star Trek Convention. While I had did watch Star Trek and its animated successor in their first runs (and subsequent reruns), and even read some of the James Blish novelizations thereof, I had made my Subway Trek from Brooklyn to Manhattan that February morning not so much for “Star Trek” as I had for the “convention” part. The Venn diagram of comic book, science fiction, and Star Trek fandom seemed to be almost concentric circles, so even if Trek wasn’t my jam, the place would still be filled with my friends from whatever fandom. The scheduled guests included Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, stars George (Mr. Sulu) Takei and James (Scotty) Doohan, as well as science fiction author Isaac Asimov. Leonard (Mr. Spock) Nimoy was not scheduled to attend. But he showed up anyway. And he chose to do so while I was in conversation outside a hotel ballroom with one of my aforementioned fandom friends, the head of security for the convention, who happened at the moment to be fully inebriated. So, when someone came rushing up to inform my friend of Nimoy’s unexpected arrival and the chaos gathering around the...
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