Script: Richard Alan & John Carnell Art: Dougie Braithwaite & Dave Elliott
A Review by Finn Clark 12/4/05
One good colouring job away from being a classic. It's a shame that this came out in the early McCoy era, when fandom was still suffering Ridgway withdrawal symptoms. There's a lot to like about the art here (by Dougie Braithwaite and Dave Elliott), but it's far from perfect. In fairness, you'll love anything portraying the natural world, outer space or especially the open ocean. The fourth page of the second episode has a gorgeous tropical beach that you'd think was by Mick Austin. I got Lunar Lagoon flashbacks. This story has flashes of looking really nice.
Unfortunately the representation of people lets the side down. Sylvester McCoy is unrecognisable, but that's not unusual for his first year or two in the comics. Less forgiveable is the way in which the inking of people goes completely to pot. If this strip ever gets coloured, it will look great. The line drawing is lively and characterful, but unfortunately in black and white its figures are a jumbled hodge-podge of flat, lifeless outlines. Nothing has weight. At times it's hard to see what we're meant to be looking at.
The story's first half is pretty silly, really. The TARDIS being washed out to sea is effective, but the aliens on Tojana are loopy. They kill each other for laughs and bicker like children because they're all going to die. As the Worrier explains... "The tides are coming in. They've been doing so for twenty generations. This island used to be a continent. Tomorrow the tides will swallow it completely. There's nothing we can do about it." That explains much, but it's still a pretty goofy moment when we discover that they haven't even heard of boats. They've accepted that they're going to die and they're going out in a cheerful blaze of violence and self-indulgence.
Episode two is where the story hits its bootstraps. We've seen the Doctor doing his best for so long that it's shocking when he just gives up on these losers. "That's it. You're all sick. You deserve to die."
The thing is, he's right. We agree with him completely, knowing that there's nothing he can do or say to help these complete idiots. However it's still chilling to see him so angry... not just a bit tetchy or "Sylvester McCoy shouting", but grimly writing off the last survivors of a civilisation and leaving them to die. What's more, a few pages later we see them drown. I can't think of anything else in Doctor Who so angrily apocalyptic, not even from the pen of Jim Mortimore. In its own way, this unregarded 16-page comic strip goes further than any other before or since.
Nitpickers might wonder if the story's apparent ray of hope at the end is illusory. The Worrier may be pregnant, but that won't do anyone much good unless we hypothesise inappropriate parent-child relationships in later years and some serious inbreeding. However there are hints that biology on Tojana isn't quite what we'd expect... despite being heavily pregnant, the Worrier is always referred to as being male. "Ahhh, ignore him, father. You come and have a bite to eat with us."
In my opinion, this is the most interesting Sylvester McCoy comic strip until Andrew Cartmel started writing them in 1990. With the possible exception of The Good Soldier (DWM 175-178), it might even be my favourite McCoy comic strip until Ground Zero (DWM 238-242) turned everything upside-down in 1996. It has a script that makes most other comic strips look like pussies and artwork that just needs a little colour to come into its own. The McCoy comic strips were distinctly uneven, lurching through phases of ugly blandness and then unprecedented maturity, but Time and Tide is an underrated gem.