World Distributors The 1979 Annual

Published	1978
SBN	7235 0491 1

Starring the fourth Doctor and Leela

• A Review by Finn Clark

A Review by Finn Clark 18/3/04

A big step up from the 1978 annual; it's still not particularly good, but it gets some things right. Firstly, it's a chunkier collection. Still only 64 pages of course, but they've cut back the filler articles to make more room for stories. Quantity may not equal quality, but it makes the annual feel more substantial.

There's also a greater sense of familiarity with the TV show. Some of these stories think Leela's an ordinary 20th century girl, but Famine on Planet X and The Crocodiles from the Mist have fun recreating an ignorant savage of the Sevateem - which incidentally helps their characterisation of the 4th Doctor. The earlier Tom Baker annuals starred Sarah and Harry, but written so blandly that their 4th Doctor had nothing to react to. However at times in this collection I could actually visualise Tom Baker, which is a huge improvement on his first three annuals. There's a throwaway line on p7... "The Doctor activated the controls that shut the door. It was one time when he would have preferred the more conventional kind of door you just slam." Okay, it's not exactly Vladimir Nabokov, but it's also a million light years from a TARDIS equipped with flight chairs and seat belts.

This year's collection starts with one great story and then collapses into bleah (just like last year), but at least this time the lesser offerings show a bit of imagination too. It's not classic World Distributors lunacy, but it's kinda fun. The Planet of Dust and Terror on Tantalogus have nifty concepts that occasionally border on wacky, though much of the effect is torpedoed with pompous info-dumps. The former story is particularly startling, with telepathic flowers and a monster that could arm-wrestle a Great Vampire. Flashback and The Crocodiles from the Mist are also better than they seem... but the problem, again, is Paul Crompton.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Crompton fan. He does amazing work and never stops experimenting... even after the huge transformation in his work over 1976-78, I couldn't believe this was him until I saw his signature. This is luscious full-colour painting, rich in palette and heavy in mood. However unfortunately it doesn't suit the tone of the stories. Flashback is a jolly piece of nonsense that needed a three-colour scrawl from the Hartnell days, but unfortunately Crompton gives it heavy, dramatic paintings that kill any light-heartedness stone dead. The Crocodiles from the Mist is also illustrated as if it's high literature. Aw, c'mon! This is a Dr Who Annual! We want a laugh! I'm sure that if you covered up Paul Crompton's pictures, the 1979 annual would become ten times as fun.

Mind you, his comic strips are still amazing. Emsone's Castle is less disturbing and more coherent than similar stuff from him in previous years, but The Power is totally wacko. This is a parade of freaks, fully painted and kinda scary. A shrivelled old Hawkman in Mad Max headgear throws the Doctor to the Porgs and goes to war to stop a baboon-girl being crowned Queen of Shem. Everyone wants The Power, which lives in a book. Oh, and the Doctor flies and nearly gets killed in aerial combat. Awesome.

Oh, and I haven't even yet sung the praises of Famine on Planet X. Its aliens are as amazing as last year's Guerners, being diminutive three-legged horned octopoids who are perfect mimics but can only communicate through the lost hieroglyphic language of Apstle. (They make the necessary shapes with tendons stretched between their massive horns.) One of 'em practically becomes a temporary companion and I wished he could have stayed. Ogg rules. He's got a face like a sock puppet but, hey, a few years later we had Adric. Famine on Planet X is the one good story I was talking about earlier.

This book is... okay. Theoretically it's as wackily over-imaginative as anything World Distributors did (walking skeletons! telepathic six-legged crocodiles!) but the illustrations drag it down and make everything too serious. Continuity hounds will be interested to learn that Leela can thrash the Doctor at draughts (but not chess), while K9-haters will be glad to learn he doesn't feature. (Whereas K9 fans can rest assured that he stars in three Doctor Who annuals and a fourth of his very own.) 1979's was the best Tom Baker annual up to that point, but a bit of an oddity, all told.