“Dammit, Peter, you write faster than I can read!!!” I wasn’t exaggerating back in 1992 when I said that to PETER DAVID, sitting across from him at a table in Goldberg’s Pizza on 2nd Avenue and 53rd street in New York City.
Peter was one of those famous people that I “almost” knew well. Back in those days before I moved from Manhattan to Los Angeles, I used to occasionally hang out with a couple Star Trek novel and comic book authors whom I’d met thanks to knowing DC Comics editor BOB GREENBERGER. Peter was one of the writers of the Star Trek comic book series (an excellent run!), and he, Bob, and Trek novelist MICHAEL JAN FRIEDMAN were a triumvirate of sorts in the early 1990s and collaborated on multiple Star Trek novels. Peter himself wrote nearly FIFTY Trek novels…including 3 TOS-era, 11 TNG novels, two DS9s, three TNG: Starfleet Academy novels, 2 Mirror Universe, and a whopping 27 of the popular New Frontier series of novels.
And that was just Star Trek! Peter also wrote five Babylon 5 novels and adaptations, a Battlestar Galactica novel, an Alienation novel, a ridiculous number of comic books for Marvel and DC (including my personal favorite “Mr. Fix-It” run in The Incredible Hulk), TV scripts, video games, and—oh, heck—just read the whole frickin’ list on Wikipedia! And that doesn’t even include the countless brilliantly insightful editorials and essays he penned in his regular But I Digress column in the Comic Buyers Guide. Indeed, if you want to hear about Peter’s life in his own words, read his memoir of amazingly true and truly amazing stories: Mr. Sulu Grabbed My Ass, and Other Highlights from a Life in Comics, Novels, Television, Films and Video Games.
Because this is a tribute blog, I want to share a few of Peter David’s stories that may or may not have made it into the public consciousness but were shared with me personally. (They actually might be in one of his memoirs, but I will sheepishly admit that I haven’t read them yet.) And since this is a Star Trek-themed blog, I’ll leave out the superhero-based stories…although there’s a hilarious one where Peter was sitting briefly at BILL SIENKIEWICZ’s table at a comic book convention, pretended to be Bill when a fan came over to ask for his autograph, and then proceeded to convince the fan that the named of the character of Moon Knight was properly pronounced “moon ken-NIG-it.”
Are you ready for some other Peter David stories?
Continue reading “R.I.P. – PETER DAVID (1956 – 2025)”
