Over the weekend I needed breakfast cereal, and that meant a trip to the store.<\/p>\n
I don’t, however, like buying cereal at the grocery store. I’d much rather go to Big Lots. They have Rice Krispies with Strawberries for two dollars a box. A deal like that? How can I pass that up? \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
There’s a comic book shop in the Big Lots shopping center in Eldersburg. I’ve gone in the store a few times the past eighteen months, though I’ve rarely bought anything.<\/p>\n
To my surprise and delight, on Saturday they had the first issue of IDW’s Doctor Who<\/i> series.<\/p>\n
I’d been looking forward to this. It’s written by Gary Russell, the script-editor on Torchwood<\/i> and the former produer for Big Finish’s Doctor Who<\/i> audio line. The artwork was by Nick Roche, an artist with whom I was completely unfamiliar, though I liked the artwork that had been posted online.<\/p>\n
The book ran into some shipping snags, apparently. And due to arcane licensing agreements, this first direct-to-comics Doctor Who<\/i> comic series isn’t available in the UK, the land that gave birth<\/i> to Doctor Who<\/i>.<\/p>\n
But it finally shipped. And I plucked down my four dollars, and I took it home and petted it and called it “George.”<\/p>\n
No. Wait. That makes no sense.<\/p>\n
I finally read it yesterday evening. And…<\/p>\n
I liked it. Though it is<\/i> slight.<\/p>\n
I’ve seen online a number of complaints about Roche’s artwork, in particular. That he doesn’t do likenesses well, that he doesn’t have the right grasp<\/i> of Doctor Who<\/i>. Frankly, I think the complaints are misguided. I really liked Roche’s artwork. That it wasn’t<\/i> a strict likeness on the Doctor and Martha was an advantage. Roche brought some style and some visual flair to the comic. I thought the artwork fit the “manic” groove that the television series goes for. No argument from me, then, on Nick Roche.<\/p>\n
The story?<\/p>\n
There’s actually nothing wrong<\/i> with the story. The Doctor and Martha are trans-temporal tourists in search of the perfect chocolate milkshake. And their journey takes them to a space station, where some bad stuff happens.<\/p>\n
In some respects, the story doesn’t feel like it belongs<\/i> in Doctor Who<\/i>‘s third season. With Mr. Saxon and the Family of Blood and Dalek-Sec and the end of the universe, a search for the perfect milkshake feels like an awkward fit. It’s not tonally right<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Yet! If you look at the opening scenes of “42,” or the bows-and-arrows closing scene of “Blink,” or even the entirety of “The Infinite Quest,” the idea of the Doctor and Martha as trans-temporal tourists isn’t that difficult to fathom. They clearly did<\/i> knock about on a bit of lark. Hell, “The Shakespeare Code” and “Gridlock” are predicated on the idea that the Doctor is taking Martha on a trip as a bit of a lark.<\/p>\n
The dialogue is right. Gary Russell knows his Who<\/i>; I could “hear” David Tennant and Freema Ageyman behind the lines. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
It’s an adequate debut. I didn’t feel cheated out of my four dollars, and it looks fantastic. My hope for the remaining issues of the mini-series is that this won’t turn out to be, essentially, six one-off issues, and that there is<\/i> a developing storyline that builds toward a grand conclusion. And hopefully a grand conclusion that’s more profound than just Martha saying, “Yep, that<\/i> is the greatest chocolate milkshake ever!” \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Don’t get me wrong — I expect that Martha will<\/i> find that milkshake. But as a grand conclusion? It’s a little weak. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
Supposedly the second issue will be shipping in the next two weeks. And one issue is going to take the Doctor and Martha back to the Year Five Billion milieu — specifically, to the home of Catkind.<\/p>\n
I’ll be looking forward to it. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the weekend I needed breakfast cereal, and that meant a trip to the store. I don’t, however, like buying cereal at the grocery store. I’d much rather go to Big Lots. They have Rice Krispies with Strawberries for two dollars a box. A deal like that? How can I pass that up? \ud83d\ude09 There’sContinue reading “On the Doctor Who Comic”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4082,319,281],"class_list":["post-1716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-who","tag-doctor-who","tag-martha-jones","tag-tenth-doctor","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}