IDW Comics Through Time and Space

Published

2009

• A Review by Finn Clark

A Review by Finn Clark 4/9/12

It's the third collection of IDW's Doctor Who comic strips and they're improving. Agent Provocateur has comparatively bright spots but gets Gary Russelled, while The Forgotten to me seems pointless. This one, though, I quite liked. I wouldn't go so far as to call it good throughout, but it has good bits and I'd certainly defend the fact of its existence.

On the art side of things, it's certainly mixing it up. You've got six stories, each with a completely different art style. I've been a Tom Mandrake fan for years, while Ben Templesmith's work in The Whispering Gallery is unlike anything I've ever seen before in Doctor Who. He's extraordinary and a reason for picking up this trade paperback on his own. Eric J is going to get some stick for his likeness of Tennant, but if you can get past that he's detailed and has character. Kelly Yates stands out by not standing out, doing completely efficient and standard comic book work that's not what you'd expect at all, given that he's working to a John Ostrander script and is being collected alongside all these other, often extreme, styles.

Finally we have some more familiar Doctor Who names in Adrian Salmon and Paul Grist, but even them you'd never describe as middle of the road. I'm not wild about Salmon's brushwork on this occasion, but Grist is his usual reliable self.

The stories for the most part are vaguely pointless, the kind of thing you'd get if you asked someone who's not bad to write something short with Doctor Who in it. They'll have some eye-catching ideas, but they don't tend to do very much with them. The Time Machination has plot twists, but feels a bit empty. Black Death White Life doesn't quite do enough to sell itself. Room With a Deja View has the kind of extraordinary idea that could have made for the most amazing story you'd ever read, but in practice doesn't really fly. That half of the collection won't really stay with you. On the other hand, the other half is trying to have emotional content and in some cases they're even doing so successfully. The most amusing of these is by Gary Russell and makes it look as if he's trying to get himself sacked from BBC Wales, or indeed anywhere that would allow him near writing materials. Another is The Whispering Gallery, which combines with its extraordinary art to become rather haunting.

The real selling point here as far as I'm concerned though is John Ostrander. I'm a huge Ostrander fan. I'm not going to judge him on his co-written short story with his late wife in Perfect Timing 2, interesting although it is, but his comics are thoughtful, interested in profound ethical questions and cool as hell. Admittedly, I've no idea what he's been up to in recent years, having been out of comics for a while, but I'd break down the doors for an ongoing Ostrander Doctor Who comic. Here the art's making him look a little kiddified, which isn't doing him any favours, but as I'd hoped and expected he's building his story upon moral issues with a directness that's very Ostrander. There's no one else quite like him, either in Who or indeed in comics.

This is the only IDW anthology. Their other collections are single-author, starting with Gary Russell and otherwise relying on Tony Lee. I'm not sure I'm looking forward to more of that. So far, Lee seems to have been setting himself the challenge of out-wanking Russell. Through Time and Space has a rubbish title, but it's deliberately mixing it up in both story and art and it's got John Ostrander in it. What more do you need to know?