IDW Comics A Room with a Deja Vu

Published

2009

• A Review by Finn Clark

A Review by Finn Clark 8/3/13

It's trying to do something so bonkers that I want to like it more than I actually do. There are aliens who live their lives backwards, you see, and... I don't need to say any more, do I?

The basic idea I love. You could do a million impossible things with it. Furthermore it's been extrapolated to provide a sound basis for this story, with time-reversed viewpoints on death, birth, distress signals and more. There's a lot to appreciate here and you can't deny that it's a story you could spend a lot of time with. However, I don't think it ever quite takes flight. It's a bit of a struggle to get to grips with, whether you're reading it forwards or back, but more importantly the writer's struggling too. The Doctor's conversation with TX contains important information and even makes sense if studied carefully and you've read it in both directions, but I wouldn't say it sparkled. Similarly the end of the story isn't as powerful as it should be, partly I think because it's too much like hard work to say exactly what just happened.

However, that said, you've got to admire it. It's totally out there and I admire the principle of a Doctor Who story that can't be fully understood without drawing out a timeline like a spaghetti junction. You certainly can't accuse anyone here of taking the easy option. It's set in a well-defined SF environment with important history stretching in both directions, in which can be found multiple alien races that have their own politics, issues and viewpoints. The events we witness are only part of a larger tapestry and you need to have visualised it all to follow the story. I like that. It's good to have the occasional story that forces the reader to do some work.

Even now, I don't think I've got a grip on the multiple Doctors yet, though. I've got a feeling it's basically even simpler than it looks and it's only reading the story backwards that makes it look messy, but right now I'm still taking that on trust, I think.

Then there's the art. Eric J strikes me as probably being at the start of his career. (As usual, I'm shooting my mouth off without knowing the first thing about the guy, by the way, so it's perfectly possible that I'm talking garbage again.) I think he tends to draw his faces while looking in a mirror, which is having an occasionally weird effect on his likeness of Tennant, and there's something slightly awkward about his designs for both the Gallubitas Xenax gasbags and the Counter family. However, on the upside, he's putting lots of effort and detail into his artwork, in particular doing slightly fiddly looking inking that you'd be surprised to find him still doing in ten years' time. It's not bad art at all. He'll be a better artist once he's loosened up a bit, but I'm perfectly happy to see that he was... eh, what's that?

Whoops. Hang on a tick.

Okay, I'm an idiot again. I've no idea whether or not Eric J is the same Eric Johnson who co-wrote The Black Pearl for Dark Horse Comics with his cousin Mark Hamill (yes, him), but it definitely seems that he used to be the regular artist on Rex Mundi in 2003-2005 for Image. He's thus been around for a little while, even if he hasn't had the highest profile in recent years. Weird. I say that because, stylistically, he does remind me of the likes of a start-of-career Lee Sullivan ( Planet of the Dead, Nemesis of the Daleks) in his inking and a slightly naive use of white areas in his compositions. The latter point would be more significant if the work hadn't been going to be coloured, though. I'm intrigued by the idea that this is a style he's been working towards rather than from. Well, anyway, if he's reading this... sorry, Eric!

Returning to Room With a Deja View, though, I don't think it's quite there. There's a lot here to chew over, but there was a better version waiting to be written. What's more, I have a feeling that a good chunk of its readership simply won't have bothered going back to work everything out and so will simply have gone away thinking it's not very good. However, it's also ambitious, ethically mature and captures the spirit of Doctor Who. I think.