A Cold Day in Hell, ed. Tom Spilsbury

Dec 28, 2018 18:47

Second frame of third story ("Crossroads of Time", written by Simon Furman, art by Geoff Senior):

(This frame is the first appearance of the Marvel character Death's Head outside its original environment in Transformers comics. In the story, the Doctor shrinks Death's head from its original giant size using the MAster's Tissue Compression Eliminator.)

This is a collection of the first eleven Seventh Doctor comic stories that ran in Doctor Who Magazine issues 130-150, from late 1987 to mid 1989. Four of the stories were written by Simon Furman, the others being by Mike Collins (scripting for a change), Grant Morrison, John Freeman, Dan Abnett, Richard Alan (actually DWM editor Richard Starkings) and John Carnell together, John Carnell on his own, and Alan Grant; five different artisis are credited for the second last story, "Follow That Tardis", a sort of jam session for Marvel UK, including Kev Hopgood, who is co-credited on two other stories (with different artists each time). It is all monochrome, which somehow I didn't expect.

Given the reputation of all of those involved, it's good solid stuff, though I found the representation of the Seventh Doctor himself a bit iffy. In the first story, the Doctor says farewell to Frobisher and acquires a non-human companion, who lasts only to the second story, and otherwise travels alone. Possibly the most fannish of the stories is "Planet of the Dead" by John Freeman with art by Lee Sullivan, where the Seventh Doctor encounters first Adric, Peri, Sara Kingdom and Katarina, and then his own previous incarnations. The one I liked most was the fairly understated "Culture Shock", by Grant Morrison with art by Bryan Hitch, in which a demotivated Doctor finds a renewed sense of purpose by helping an alien life form.

I confess that I haven't gone through the Panini comics collections very systematically, but theyare all of decent quality, and maybe I should. You can get it here.

This was my top unread comic; next on that list is Troll Bridge, by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran.



doctor who, doctor who: 07, bookblog 2018, writer: simon furman, writer: alan moore, writer: grant morrison, comics

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