June Books 13) Doctor Who Annual 1971
I've just finished rewatching the 1970 season of Doctor Who (my thoughts on it will be posted on Tuesday when I've finished Terror of the Autons) and so the time was right to dig out the PDF of the 1971 Doctor Who annual from the Inferno DVD set. I must say I found this to be the best written, and one of the best illustrated, of the annuals so far. Somehow tying the format down to Earth, with the threesome of Brigadier, Liz and Doctor, must have prevented the writer(s) from turning in naff space opera tales. The stories (eight in total, no comic strip this time) are a tad derivative of the televised Season Seven but basically OK and sometimes better than OK; the Doctor/Brigadier relationship is nicely done (though poor Liz is a bit screamy). One of the stories ("The Ghosts of Grestonspey") appears to have had a couple of final paragraphs omitted (on page 41), but it's clear what is going to happen and if it was done to make more space for the artwork that was probably a good call. (See also Finn Clark's review, which says the same I do here but at greater length.) Apparently there was no annual the following year - the year when Jo, the Master and Mike Yates were introduced - so it'll be a couple of months before I get to the next one.