Script: Andrew Cartmel Art: Arthur Ranson
The Scaredy Cat by Noe Geric 8/7/20
After the cancellation of the TV show, Doctor Who Magazine decided that it would be a good idea, for once, to have Ace in the main strip. How odd that it happens only three years after her first appearance on TV. And how odd for her to make her debuts in such a mess. Fellow Travellers is by far the strangest comic ever published in DWM: the drawing are atrocious, the script is quite empty, and the characters are completely nonexistent.
The story is set in an old house, and there are two creatures trying to possess bodies. The idea is quite strange. We aren't clearly introduced to what's happening until the second episode, and only the two regulars get some characterization. Three women live in this house: a mother-in-law, a mother, and her daughter (I can't remember their names). The mother-in-law apparently doesn't approve of the wedding between her son and the mother, and she apparently often hurts her granddaughter. Of course, these are important things to know, and that's why we aren't introduced to them until the end of the last episode. Before that, the characters are quite useless and blank.
Ace and the Doctor aren't really interesting neither. The two monsters are supposed to be villains, so the Doctor blows up one of them (like he often does, he blows up monsters!) and they simply let the other live in the Mother's body. That's everything that happens in three episodes. There are also two policemen, but they appear briefly and don't do anything except be scared.
There's also the cat who's possessed, then the grand-mother, and it continues like this. The story is a traditional Season 26 serial. But the drawings are... atrocious. The strip's drawings are only taken from publicity shots for Ace and the Doctor, and most of the other characters have their faces hidden in shadows so that they don't need any face. The monster is the best thing but isn't really creepy. There's dark and shadows everywhere, it's supposed to produce a dark atmosphere... But it completely fails. There are also some pannels where I didn't understand what was happening, on one of them, the Doctor hit the cat-monster with something, but the drawing more suggest he simply touches the cat gently and then the big creature fall on the floor. The drawing is clearly denied of any excitement.
The two cliffhangers are uninteresting, the characters forgettable and the characterization completely blank, and this is supposed to be a script from Andrew Cartmel! It looks like a cheaper version of Ghost Light. Arthur Ranson's drawing are hideous, and nothing here is interesting. The story is really slow-paced and boring. The idea was nice, but it is let down mainly by the drawings and the length of the story. Three parts were too much for Fellow Travellers: 4/10. Not really memorable.