An Innovation Publication

The late 1980's and early 1990's saw an increase in smaller comic book publishing companies. One of those companies was Innovation. The biggest seller that Innovation had was Lost in Space. It is so far the only official comic book version of Lost in Space the TV show. Unless you count Space Family Robinson which was a comic book by Gold Key in the 1960's. Yes the family was named Robinson and they were in space but it was not Lost in Space.
In 1991 David Campiti, editor and publisher for Innovation met Viacom's Howard Berk to discuss getting the rights to publishing some of their shows. Mr. Campiti was shown a list of shows and was surprised to find that Viacom owned the publishing rights to Lost In Space. For years it was assumed that Irwin Allen and his estate owned the rights. They only owned the the film and television rights. Publishing was owned by Viacom. Mr. Campiti said that Lost In Space was the only one he had interest in. Mr. Berk asked him what he would do with it. He told him it would be taken in a more serious direction and not campy like the TV show. Mr. Berk said he didn't have a problem with that. During negotiation's Innovation asked Bill Mumy, who had played Will Robinson on the TV show, to be one of the writers for the book. Mr. Mumy had been approached by Marvel and DC for the same thing before. He figured if the two big ones can't do it then Innovation can't either so he passed on the assignment. When Innovation got the rights they asked Mr. Mumy again. This time he said yes. Mark Goddard who played Major Don West also wrote an issue. The other cast members, espically June Lockhart and Johathan Harris, offered input to Mr. Mumy. However, the comic was only with us for 18 issues. Issue 18 was the 6th part of a 12 part storyline. The rest of the story has never been published to this date. Mr. Mumy was very upset at this turn of events. The book was outselling all other titles that Innovation published. It had brought in non-comic book fans into the comic book stores. They were not comic fans but they loved the TV show and were glad to see it being taken seriously. However there were problems with other books and that led to financial problems. The first sign of the problems was when David Campiti left the company that he had founded. The cause of the financial problems was that one of the companies backers called in his loan. Unable to payback the money all at once the comapny had to fold.
I have not been a big fan of comic books based on TV shows but Innovation published the best. Lost In Space and Quantum Leap. They were the ones that I read. Now I have always loved science fiction especially when the stars of the series meets his double. I always wanted to know how Lost In Space would have been if Dr. Smith was the good guy and Major West and the Robinson family had been the bad guys. During the first 12 issues I submitted that story to Innovation. I came up with a story that had the original cast going through a worm hole and when they emerge they check the star charts and see they are not far from Earth. When they land they discover they are really in another universe that is like ours but the Jupiter 2 has not taken off yet. The evil Mjr. West and the evil Robinsons plan to take off into space but are going to meet with aliens they have been in contact with and return to help them take over the Earth. Then they would rule the planet. The good Dr. Smith finds out about this. He can't stop them or make anyone believe him so, just as the bad Dr. Smith did on TV, he gets on board and destroies the guidance system but did not get off in time. Now he is trapped on board with 6 villians. The good Robinsons find out and try to catch up with them but are sucked into the worm hole again and arrive back in their own universe. This could have had people wonered what happened to the good Dr. Smith and setup future meetings between the two Jupiter 2 crews. The above is a very nice form letter from the submissions editor Mark Bernardo. My original story was also sent back with a note from Mr. Campiti he said that "Lost In Space and Star Trek have both done "doubles" stories already. This is nothing like the direction I'm taking the comics series. Sorry. David." While that was a nice rejection I still think they could have done the story. From the Prince and the Pauper to Star Trek to today people love doubles stories. They would not be published or produced for so long if it were not true.