On New Doctor Who Comics

IDW, published of comics based on Star Trek and the Transformers, has picked up the comics license for Doctor Who. Announced at San Diego Comicon yesterday, the series will star the tenth Doctor and Martha and will debut later in the year, written by Doctor Who novelist Gary Russell and with art by Nick Roche.

Newsarama has a fun interview with Russell, Roche, IDW editor Chris Ryall. The interview itself is fine, but the article suffers some factual errors. Calling the actor who portrayed the eight Doctor “Eric McGann”? And while Doctor Who Magazine did contemplate a regeneration from the eighth Doctor to the ninth, going so far as to script it, the regeneration the article mentions never happened in DWM (as an essay in Panini’s graphic novel, The Flood, explains).

This is a particularly good quote from Gary Russell:

This series is different from everything that went before, so you adapt to suit the current environment. That said, of course it is all the same show in spirit. But then again so’s Claremont’s X-Men, Liefield’s X-Men, Morrison’s X-Men and Whedon’s X-Men. And yet all of those runs are ‘of their time’, so you borrow a bit here, a bit there but then remold it to suit what you need to tell the story today. If can totally slaughter my analogy quotient, it’s one big sandbox – we’re playing with the same toys, but each kid repaints them to suit their taste. With Doctor Who, I’m hoping I don’t accidentally pick up the paint pot marked SHOCKING DAY-GLO GREEN and produce something unrecognizable.

I like this, especially if the series is pitched at a slightly different audience as the interview suggests. Making Doctor Who cool for the American audience, that’s not a bad thing at all. 🙂

Add to this this bit from Comic Book Resources‘s article:

Russell, who has two years worth of stories mapped out for what is expected to be ongoing series, is also happy with the Doctor’s current companion, Martha Jones, played on television by Freema Agyeman.

“I adore Martha Jones and find writing for her great fun,” said Russell, adding readers may have to wait a while to see the Doctor’s archenemy in action.

Stories Russell wants to tell, stories with Martha, a companion I absolutely enjoy, and it sounds like the ingredients for a winning combination.

IDW also has plans to reprint some of the older Dave Gibbons-illustrated comics from the early 1980s, stories that were republished by Marvel in their Doctor Who comic and more recently by Panini in their trade paperback line.

And is it too early to hope that IDW might someday combine some of their licenses in a crossover extravaganza? I can imagine it now—Doctor Who/Transformers. Or maybe, at long last, we could have Star Trek/Doctor Who. A fan can dream, right? 😉

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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