Star Trek has touched the lives of many creative types, including that of Bill Amend, creator of the iconic FoxTrot comic.
Star Trek is largely known as a science fiction series that tackles the greater questions of our world in neat, easy-to-digest stories that rarely stretch past 40-odd minutes. Yet, if there were two other things it’s known for it’s the impact it has had on pop culture that surrounds its own orbit, as well as its delightful connection to Christmas.
If you’re a science fiction show, book, movie, or what have you, you’ve been influenced by Star Trek. Not only that but if you’ve ever embraced nerd culture, like the Animaniacs or even Black Mirror, Trek has influenced that as well. So it’s not surprising that FoxTrot, an iconic cartoon about the Fox family and the youngest son’s love of all things nerdy, has often referenced Star Trek.
In December of 2010, series creator Bill Amend created a classic comic of the Fox family, featuring the youngest character, Jason, making Christmas cookies of gingerbread men wearing redshirts. Jason’s sister Page is unaware of why they’re all wearing red shirts and the charming little comic ends after two panels.
But Star Trek fans know why.
The FoxTrot Star Trek comic really speaks to us as a website
We’re big fans of anything that pokes a bit of fun at the redshirt’s idea of Star Trek. For those unaware, the redshirt idea is the belief that if you wore a redshirt in the original series, you were likely to end up dead. And while that was mostly true, it wasn’t nearly as often as fans had actually thought it was.
It’s what we’re named after and so we like to celebrate any other property that also touches base with that long-held fan theory.