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The Radio Times Comic Strip

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• A Review by Richard Radcliffe
• A Review by Finn Clark

A Review by Richard Radcliffe 2/6/02

When the film was hot property back in the Summer of 1996, Radio Times decided to leap on the bandwagon for this New Who and publish a Comic Strip featuring the new Doctor. This strip ran for 42 segments between June 1996 and March 1997. It was a part of the Sci-Fi page (which didn't last much longer than the Strip it turned out). It was double the length of usual Newspaper Strips, the likes of Rupert the Bear, Peanuts and Fred Bassett usually lasted 1 line, 4-5 panels, and that was it.

What distinguished it from the bulk of Comic Strips that DW had produced over the years, was the vibrant colour that it was presented in. Gary Russell, who also wrote the Novelization of the 8th Doctor Film, was the scribe. The real splendour though was the artwork - Lee Sullivan, yes him off the Death Comes to Time Webcasts; and the Colour that it all appeared in (courtesy of Alan Craddock).

The 42 parts were split into 4 10 part stories, and 1 2-parter to close the thing off. The original idea was to have 6 10 part stories, but Russell, Sullivan and Craddock were all curtailed early. That's a bit of a shame considering the vibrancy of the artwork, and the nice simple storytelling on show.

The strip begins with Dreadnought. A young cargo hauler Stacy, and her boyfriend Bill, are running along a walkway which overhangs a massive drop. They're on the run from the Cybermen, newly designed, very impressive. We're in the future here, and already the visuals are classic "no budgetary constraints here". The Doctor suddenly appears to help Stacy, and thus the 2 have to stop the Cybermen, and try not to become part of their Collective. It's an excellent beginning. The Doctor is debonair, Stacy is full of vitality, the Cybermen seem somehow more impressive than for ages. Dreadnought also makes full use of the TARDIS new Control room. Setting the second half in there, when the Cybermen are trying to take over the Doctor's ship, provides one of the real stand-out images of the Film, with more exposure.

At the end of Dreadnought Stacey joins the Doctor and they are soon on Mars, keeping out the way, watching a rite of passage ceremony for a young Ice Warrior. This second segment, Descendance, is dominated by the scaly honorbound antics of the Ice Warriors. We're introduced to rival factions on Mars, and tribal warfare between the respective groups is the name of the game. Enter Ssard, who with Stacy gets kidnapped - the Doctor has to conjure up a rescue, and 10 parts is just not enough. Onward we go then to Ascendance, the second part of the Ice Warrior saga.

The moral Ice Warrior story about Family, Honour and Bribery continues apace in Ascendance. Lee Sullivan portrays the Castles of Mars with great imagination. The Red Planet has never looked so colourful. Red rocks combine with Blue Walls, with Green Phospherescent Water flowing between. Craddock's colours are brilliantly alive, Sullivan's artwork is excellent. The Ice Warrior story benefits from being a double-parter. The internal civil war has more than enough characters to carry it along. Female Ice Ladies, Power Hungry Ice-Lords, with standard Ice Warrior thugs to help out all of them.

The 4th 10 part story is Perceptions. Ice Warrior Ssard is now on board the TARDIS - a highly unusual companion, and probably the big mistake of the Radio Times Comic Strip run. It's set in Victorian London where a spacecraft occupies central position on a busy thoroughfare. We're into Pseudo-Historical territory here - but it quickly takes on a rather slapstick attitude when the true nature of the alien presence is uncovered. Yellow spotted Purple Horses do not make the most convincing of alien races. There are some great scenes around the travelling Freak Show though, and a surprisingly poignant conclusion, considering the look of the aliens.

Then the comic strip was curtailed. Gary Russell was asked to wind up his story not in 2 10-part stories, but in just 2 very small, single parts. The Coda is exactly that, a tagged on rushed bit to resolve Stacy's apparent possession in Perceptions. It also features the classic Comic Strip ending of "I promised you fun adventures, so let's get going with them!!!". The Coda was a shame, Gary Russell had a plan, and he had to shelve it. He eventually did finish his story, especially the Stacy and Ssard friendship, in the BBC 8th Doctor book - Placebo Effect.

Despite the fact that we were cut short, the 4 completed stories stand quite well with the many stories of DW. The Comic Strip has never looked so alive and vibrant, for definite. Even when DWM finally went to Colour in DWM 300, they couldn't match the technicolour brilliance of the Radio Times Strip. Very few things can - it really leaps from the page with colour and vitality - colourist Alan Craddock deserves much of the credit.

Gary Russell's stories are simple yet effective. He moves the story along nicely, and provides periodic recaps to help the new reader. This works very well, giving the reader a chance to pause and recollect the action already taken place. The expansion of the Cybermen and, even moreso, the Ice Warriors add some interesting facts to their already considerable Culture. Lee Sullivan's artwork pushes these new ideas forward well. They are still the Monsters from TV, but further developed - and that bit more interesting.

Of the 4 stories it is Ice Warrior double segment that works the best, there's more of it, and the Ice Warriors are interesting. The Cybermen story was great for the new Cybermen, and it's always nice to go back to Victorian London too, the 8th Doctor seems at home there for some reason.

The Radio Times strip was part of a wonderfully alive time for Doctor Who. The Film promised the start of something new, something special, the continuing adventures of our favourite programme. It didn't happen, there was no new TV show. This strip shows, along with the many books and Audios that have come to us since and because of the film, that DW has benefitted from the injection of a new Doctor. The first New Adventures of the 8th Doctor started the ball rolling. These are good 8th Doctor stories. 7/10

A Review by Finn Clark 7/9/04

Possibly the biggest missed opportunity in Doctor Who comics. Polystyle Publications and Marvel UK's Doctor Who Magazine have performed valiantly over the decades, but there's no comparison between them and Radio Times. Its official circulation figures are 1,160,436 per week [Audit Bureau of Circulations, July 2003], but this overlooks the 'coffee table' factor. Radio Times is kept handy in the house all week and is usually read by the whole family, so its actual readership is nearer five million.

A weekly Doctor Who comic strip in Radio Times could have reached more readers than any previous strip ever. It could have been a flagship for the show.

Unfortunately they let Gary Russell write it.

That probably sounds overly harsh. These strips aren't terrible, but they're unmemorable, contain not an iota of original thought and don't let the Doctor beat the bad guys. Gary Russell was a busy beaver in 1996, writing the TVM novelisation, Destiny of the Doctors, lots of novels and of course these Radio Times strips. Thinking about it, future historians may decide that Gary's greatest talent involved organisation, hustling and making things happen, e.g. editing DWM or creating Big Finish. That's not damning with faint praise, by the way. That talent is the lifeblood of any truly successful industry. However as a writer he's... let's say uninspired.

Despite its shake 'n' bake plot, Dreadnought (Radio Times 3775-3784) has a certain freshness to it. This might be thanks to its redesigned Cybermen (and some mean-looking Cybermats), or perhaps because the script's so obviously excited about its shiny new Doctor. There's a loving panorama of the TARDIS console room, simply because it's new and cool. Even after nearly a decade of 8th Doctor adventures, there's something endearing about Dreadnought's enthusiasm.

But plotwise it's worthless. The story has no surprises unless you count the Doctor's relative spinelessness (surrendering to the Cybermen simply because they've stolen his TARDIS). It's a random grab-bag of well-worn plot elements, down to the Cybermen being defeated by an incidental character (Bill) rediscovering his humanity at the crucial moment. The Doctor spouts technobabble and hits buttons on the TARDIS console, but basically someone else did his job for him.

The Doctor also acquires a companion: Stacy Townsend. Her character traits are... um, she's blonde.

Descendance (Radio Times 3785-3794) and Ascendance (Radio Times 3795-3804) combine to make a twenty-part story that's been split in half and given two titles. It's an Ice Warrior story set on Mars with no non-Martians but the Doctor and his companion, which in fairness is something I don't think we've seen before. Unfortunately again only Lee Sullivan's art has points of interest, with the plot being a drab political runaround of Two Alien Factions. Will Ice Warriors triumph over Ice Warriors!?! Gee, I can't wait to find out!

There's an Ice Lady. She's cool, with her head frill and spiky ridges. I also liked the purple monster in part three of Ascendance. However the script starts with blather about the Ritual of Tuburr (DIE YOU BORING BASTARDS, DIE), continues with Dreadnought's undynamic Doctor (after wandering into a prison cell in Ascendance, he sits there and waits to be captured instead of going back and trying another tunnel) and again doesn't let the Doctor defeat the villain. One Martian shoots another Martian. Be still my beating heart.

I could point at small oddities... why should female reptiles have breasts? It's common in SF, but they're mammary glands. Doesn't make sense to me. However I liked one subtle continuity touch: "Shssur", the Martian honorific that was used for Bernice Summerfield in Legacy.

The Doctor also acquires another companion: Ssard. He's an Ice Warrior. I rather like this concept, but as a character Ssard makes Stacy look deep.

Finally we have Perceptions (Radio Times 3805-3814) and its last-minute Coda (Radio Times 3815-3816), a Victorian London runaround in which the Doctor gets even less to do than usual. Coda was a last-minute change of plan that had to wrap up everything in two episodes and so actually has the Doctor doing something, but I'm sure the original story plan made him as ineffectual as usual. It's another Two Alien Factions story. We have the Equinoids, i.e. purple horses with yellow spots which returned in Placebo Effect, but also some evil shape-changers which were to have been Zygons but ended up just being scarlet energy blobs. It's a close call, but Perceptions is probably the dullest of these four stories.

There's a continuity cock-up... "swapping your skin for green scales doesn't become the rage here until the body-bepple fad of the late 29th century." That's an Original Sin mis-reference which should be the 30th century. Dear oh dear.

The 8th Doctor's adventures with Stacy and Ssard had been cut short by a new Ratio Times editorial team. Gary had planned more stories:

"There were two more ten-part stories - in which Stacy was revealed to be a Zygon replacement (they were to have been the villains from the Victorian tale we did finish [Perceptions] - and then added that awful Coda to). Story one [Deceptions] was on an ice planet, then story two took them to the Zygon homeworld and saw Ssard rescuing the fair damsel which started the romance that finished up in Placebo Effect."

p20:
"Having kids'll be fun, I'd say."
"Stacy can't. Side-effect of something that happened while we were travelling."

p37:
"Only magicians could take me to Victorian London or 22nd-century Borneo."

Overall, these stories are bland but inoffensive. In fairness one-page strip episodes are a difficult format to work in; I can't say that Gary Russell succeeded, but he could have fared much worse. Visually I have no complaints; Lee Sullivan does his usual dynamic work, while Alan Craddock's computer colouring is still some of the best we've seen in Doctor Who. It's pretty. Check out the chrome effects on his Cybermen, for instance.

I don't actually mind these comic strips. They're readable. Gary's written much worse. However we can only dream of what might have been had these Radio Times pages been given to the likes of Wagner, Moore or Parkhouse. They're okay. They should have been awesome.