World Distributors The 1974 Annual

Published	1973
SBN	7235 0185 8

Starring the third Doctor, Jo Grant, UNIT, the Master and the Daemons

• A Review by Finn Clark

A Review by Finn Clark 19/2/04

In my opinion there were two golden ages for World's Dr Who Annuals. The second of 'em was in the early eighties, believe it or not, but the first was the Pertwee era. His annuals may be regrettably sane (by the annuals' standards, anyway), but they're solid, well written and faithful to their parent TV show. During Pertwee's time, Doctor Who was a giant of British pop culture and these annuals reflect that. They're confident, colourful and a lot of fun.

They're more coherent, too. The Troughton-era annuals are obviously written by a team, but these stories feel like the work of one pen. They have a common ethos, one which stretches right back to the earliest annuals and which a reader might have missed in the sudden Whoishness if it wasn't emphasised so strongly. When the Troughton annuals went all weird and mystical, it felt like sense-of-wonder SF. However when a Pertwee annual does the same thing in an Earthbound setting, it's like a spiritual message from the Dalai Lama.

Out Of The Green Mist is the best example of this, in which the Doctor summons a being of ectoplasm in his attempt to contact the other side. Even the technobabble feels spiritualist - "an alien universe existing invisibly, side by side with ours". Successful contact leaves the Doctor like a man who's had a religious experience. To quote the ectoplasmic beings themselves... "Only when all the races of Life move out of the multi-dimensional sphere into the Mystery that still lies Beyond, of which even our highest minds have no smallest notion, will the Absolute be reached, that state wherein Relativity fades and there is no longer comparison and polarity."

And this in a TV tie-in children's book!

The 1974 Dr Who annual exists in a mystical multiverse, in which Dr. Who doesn't have all the answers because that would be impossible for even a near-immortal like himself. There are dimensions and realms out there which our finest minds can hardly perceive, let alone understand. The higher beings are not without their rotten apples (Listen - the Stars!, Out of the Green Mist, Galactic Gangster) and mindless horrors (Talons of Terror, Menace of the Molags), but they are invariably nobler and wiser than us. There's a definite pre-Spielberg Close Encounters vibe. When the Brigadier got trigger-happy and militaristic on TV, he was generally right. Here, he's always wrong - and by the time we reach Old Father Saturn, it doesn't even occur to us that these aliens might theoretically be the usual Doctor Who "kill 'em all!" bug-eyed-monsters.

There are exceptions to this, but always for a reason. Old Father Saturn is a mood piece with a depressingly bleak ending, in which we meet an exploration vessel of ancients who don't know that their world was torn asunder millions of years ago. These are ordinary manlike beings rather than higher powers, but that's because we're meant to empathise with them in the face of cosmic irony.

Then there's The Time Thief. This comic strip has parallel universes, World War One bombers, Ekayprian sea monsters and more, but it's also a cracking story with vivid, dynamic art and a breathtaking pace. [Each of its pages has nearly enough plot for a whole episode of DWM's comic strip these days.] Its script is just what you'd expect from this collection, but Steve Livesey's art makes this a completely visual experience. It's Countdown-inspired, fully painted and absolutely gorgeous. This must be one of the best Doctor Who comic strips ever and I'm not saying that ironically.

(The other comic strip is more in line with the general tone, with mankind reeling in horror as godlike aliens try to help us save ourselves from the mindless Molags. The black-and-white art (okay, duotone) is spooky and atmospheric... and the aliens, though unnamed, are obviously the Daemons! Normally World Distributors would have had to pay the BBC for using monsters off the telly, but anyone can draw a picture of the Devil with horns, hooves and a tail. This annual set a pattern of comic strips which would last through to 1980 - two six-page strips per book, one fully painted and one in black-and-white with duotone 'colouring'.)

However despite everything I've said, there's something quirky and Whoish about these stories too. They're a million miles away from Who's usual pulp diet of killer monsters and alien invasions, but their eerie spiritualism is set against a background of down-to-earth settings and ordinary people. Listen - the Stars! has the Master using an Earth scientist's invention to communicate with other spheres (like last year's Doorway into Nowhere)... but Zex of the System gger can only communicate through UNIT's cleaning lady, Mrs Prentice.

Then there's Galactic Gangster, which gives us a terrifying cosmic panorama and a villain who gets compared with Milton's Lucifer, but Dr. Who beats him with... a punch to the jaw. What's more, the story is actually aware of the bathos, continuing beyond the usual endpoint of a Doctor Who story for the sake of a philosophical lecture from a nobler member of the Gangster's species. ["The delightful simplicity of a naive primitive man. And where all our navies and our mighty weapons failed, it brought down this last of the Galactic conquerors. I will take him away from here and leave you in your primitive paradise. In millions of years you and your kind may one day evolve to be like us."]

What's more, the author has clearly been watching the show. The Fathom Trap is reminiscent of The Sea Devils (not to mention two more undersea stories in this collection!) while two (count 'em) stories are inspired by The Time Monster! There's something you don't see every day. The regulars are nearly as well-written as last year, with the Master playing a Satan-like role in Out Of the Green Mist that's arguably more interesting than anything he did in his TV stories. [He doesn't actually become the Devil or anything like that, but Out of the Green Mist is practically a rewrite of Milton, with theological arguments and good versus evil.]

This was my first ever Dr Who annual, appearing in my Christmas stocking one year. It was tatty and missing the inside front cover, but I loved it. Nevertheless it's hard to imagine such a book being written for children today; its stories are spooky and mind-expanding instead of the usual action-adventure. It's not even afraid to give us the odd downbeat ending. However as a piece of Doctor Who, it's fascinating.