THE DOCTOR WHO RATINGS GUIDE: BY FANS, FOR FANS

TV Publications Ltd
The 1967 TV Comic Annual

Published 1966 Cover image

Starring the first Doctor, John and Gillian

Reviews

A Review by Finn Clark 29/6/04

It's Hartnell's second TV Comic annual! Don't worry, I won't be going into as much detail as last time. That review had a lotta new stuff to discuss, but from now on each TV Comic annual will have only minor differences from the last one. As with the 1966 volume, this annual stars Dr Who, Popeye, the Telegoons, Beetle Bailey, Mighty Moth, the TV Terrors, Dr Nolan's TeleVarsity and a historical adventure strip (Midshipman Merry). There's a little new stuff, but it's basically a rerun of the same formula. I preferred last year's book, but that's hardly surprising since I think 1966 was the best of 'em.

Popeye is blatantly a bought-in American strip instead of home-made British work. "A football suit" means American football, not soccer. The Swee'pea story is rubbish, naturally, but there's definite comedy mileage in Wimpy the burger-crazed layabout. Bluto's still the most interesting character of the lot, though.

The Telegoons only get those bland two-page storyless splash spreads! No plot, just one big picture. TV Comic bought the rights to the Goons and made this? Thus there's no challenge for Beetle Bailey's position of funniest strip in the book. I really like that worthless slacker, who's the antithesis of a poster child for army recruitment. (However it's strange to think that when this book was published America was fighting in Vietnam.)

Mighty Moth has improved slightly, if only because Mighty Moth himself gets a little characterisation by actually being a moth. He eats clothes! Dick Millington is trying to rip off Wile E. Coyote, with lots of bombs and self-destruction, but it's too bland to be anything but vanilla. The TV Terrors are much better, with the "Hoppit on ice" story being particularly entertaining. There's even a 'Men from UNCLE' parody which is silly fun but surprisingly respectful.

Of the straight adventures, there's another jolly text story of Dr Nolan's TeleVarsity ("the most modern school in Britain. Everything is electronic and all the work is done by Robots"). I liked it. Midshipman Merry is bollocks and The Secret Satellite has the most blatant product placement you've ever seen. "In a flash he whips off his Ladybird seater and stuffs it in the hole." It's not really a comic strip, more like a text advertisement with pictures.

This year's new strips are Tivvy (dialogue-free crap from Finland) and The Avengers. Emma Peel's likeness is approximate at best, but Steed looks perfect. The Avengers on TV were sufficiently larger-than-life for a comic strip translation to seem natural; it all works surprisingly well, except when one story's ending explains everything away as a big misunderstanding. Booooo, hiss! Cop-out!

Things I learned from reading this book:

  1. When filming jungle adventures, TV studios let unsedated lions wander around.
  2. Moths can throw tree trunks.
  3. Explosives are the best choice for moth control.
  4. If pirates take you prisoner, they'll let you keep your gun if it's unloaded.
  5. Sweaters make an airtight seal if your spaceship is holed.
The Doctor Who stories are Deadly Vessel and Kingdom of the Animals. My sources suggest that both stories were painted by John Canning, but I reckon the latter was a Bill Mevin rush job in which he didn't have time for the lavish colour painting of his weekly strips. It's certainly daft enough. Dr Who, John and Gillian land on a world where giant animals capture them and keep them in cages. In Gillian's words... "Now I know how unpleasant life must be for some of the pets on Earth when the children who own them don't bother to care for them properly!" Gosh, what might be the moral of that story?

Deadly Vessel is definitely drawn by the legendary John Canning, though. He's far from being the world's greatest artist, but even today no one has drawn more Doctor Who than him. He had two runs on the strip: 1966-70 (Hartnell to Pertwee) and 1975-78 (Tom Baker), drawing 92 stories and a total of 840 comic strip pages. Some legendary comics creators have worked on Who, but for volume of work no one's yet come close to Canning. Here's the top of the league table:

John Canning 840
Martin Geraghty 612 (so far, up to Bad Blood in early 2004)
John Ridgway 495
Gerry Haylock 398
Dave Gibbons 369
Lee Sullivan 258

His story here, Deadly Vessel, is clever, logical, not at all preposterous and a bit dull. The Doctor's actions to sabotage the Ulk scientists' boat are well reasoned, but at the end of the day he's merely sawing down a mast. It makes sense, but one doesn't read TV Comic for stories that make sense...