THE DOCTOR WHO RATINGS GUIDE: BY FANS, FOR FANS

Polystyle Publications Ltd
The 1973 Countdown Annual

Published 1972 Cover image
SBN (not ISBN) 85096 025 8

Starring the third Doctor

Reviews

A Review by Finn Clark 13/8/04

Even less interesting than the first Countdown annual! It's heavy on the Gerry Anderson stuff (UFO, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet), which I dare say is probably thrilling to many people who aren't me. This year's stories range from okay (UFO, Captain Scarlet) to boring (Thunderbirds) to coma-inducing (The Persuaders). Also there's another kiddie strip to go with Dastardly and Muttley... Autocat and Motormouse, another Hanna-Barbera property. "Who and what?" I hear you cry. Yup, my thoughts exactly. Sadly I couldn't recommend either of these, ahem, 'funnies'.

The art's less fabulous than last year, though still of a high quality. The Persuaders has photo-illustrations instead of art, plus only three of these stories are in colour. Is that Ron Turner on Thunderbirds? Looks like him. Even in duotone, he's still great. Why does hand-painting look so much better than modern computer colouring, eh?

Believe it or not, the best thing in this book by light-years is the Doctor Who story! It's a seven-pager called Ride to Nowhere, illustrated by Frank Langford, and its plot is more intricate and mature than the non-stop action sequences throughout the rest of this annual. There's even a mystery, and it's a good'un. I might have wanted more justification for Sir Henry's final decision to kill his brainchild, but I'm impressed that this story even went there in the first place. The painted art is lovely too. All told, seven top-notch Polystyle pages.

Things I learned from reading this book:

  1. English coal miners worked topless to show off their finely honed physiques.
  2. Interdimensional travel is green.
  3. If you're the hero of your own strip, you can safely crash your plane into a cliff without even an explanation afterwards of how you escaped certain death.
This book is pretty dull, to be honest. If you ask me, Polystyle Publications were the lesser siblings of the UK comics scene. TV Comic lacked the anarchic bite of kiddie rivals like the Beano, while Countdown feels staid compared with the brutal fare that would come with Judge Dredd, Action, Battle, etc. There's a reason why TV-based comic strips largely died out in Britain. Modern Doctor Who comics are practically a living fossil.

So a top-class Doctor Who story, but everything else is unmemorable. Mind you, from a Doctor Who fan's perspective that's not so terrible.