Melonpool

I realized today that everyone on the left side of this cast photo is alive and everyone on the right is deceased. Weird!

Last Friday, Leonard Nimoy passed away of End-Stage Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Most of the world knew his by his alter ego, Spock or as the host of the 1970s TV show “In Search Of.” Here is the story of the one and only time I met him, at a Tower Records in Los Angeles, California…

In 2000, my then-wife Sandy found out that Nimoy was signing copies of “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” which had recenltly been released on DVD. A few months before that, I had met Walter Koenig (Chekov) at a comic convention and immediately turned into a 13-year-old girl and blathered on to him incoherently for at least ten minutes.

Sandy was bound and determined that I was better-prepared when  I met Nimoy. She had me practive saying “Hello, Mr. Nimoy. I’ve been a fan of yours for years. I created this comic called Melonpool that I think you’ll enjoy. Your friend Kirk Thatcher is writing the foreword to my second collection.” I repeated this over and over until I got to the front of the line to meet him at Tower Records.

Anyway, when the time came, I rattled off my little speech flawlessly, handed him a copy of my first collection and a mock up of the second one that had the parody of “The Voyage Home” on it. Suddenly, Nimoy asked me. ” Oh! You know Kirk? How is he doing?”

At this point, I quickly spouted out “I think he’s working for the Muppets!” and Sandy and I quickly made our way out of the building.

It just worked out that today’s strip featured a line of dialogue that Nimoy uttered in the Star Trek episode, “The Trouble with Tribbles” in 1967. It was a privilege to let Nimoy know how much of an inspiration he’d been to me — even if I turned into a 13-year-old girl when he tried to make conversation.

Live Long and Prosper