There's not much you can do to spoof classic Star Trek that won't have occurred to hundreds of other would-be lampoonists the world over. As I've mentioned before, despite being aimed at the show's fanbase as much as at the programme itself, even the recent Galaxy Quest targeted many of the same areas as I did in this strip.

And, on that note, Spock's ears are always going to be a target. Even with the appearance of several spin-offs crammed with regular characters sporting prosthetic foreheads, blue antennae and flattened noses, it's still Spock's ears that people associate with Star Trek.

Re-reading this page after all these years, therefore, was a pleasant surprise. Sure, it goes for the ears but how many others would have done so via the white rabbit from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

On an almost completely unrelated note, the link between Alice and SciFi is possibly closer than you might think. If you've never read it (maybe because you thought it was too girly, too childish or just too ancient and musty), then do!

I re-read it recently and I was struck by the similarities with Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not the story, obviously, but both share a sense of surreal whimsy and delight in playing with the English language. Classics, both!