WEBVTT 01:00.000 --> 01:15.220 In the 1950s, obviously comics or kids' comics had been around for quite some time, but with 01:15.220 --> 01:17.960 the rise of television, there was obviously a bit of competition there. 01:17.960 --> 01:23.400 Kids were watching kids' programs, so the obvious solution there to the comics publishers 01:23.400 --> 01:29.800 was to actually start publishing stories or comics based around TV characters. 01:29.800 --> 01:32.400 And with that in mind, that's where TV comic came around. 01:32.400 --> 01:37.800 The News of the World set up a separate company which was called TV Publications and later 01:37.800 --> 01:45.800 became PolyStyle, and they published TV Comic, and that was launched in 1951, and it included 01:45.800 --> 01:52.720 some of the early Gerry Anderson puppet series like Fourth Ever Falls, Space Patrol by Roberta 01:52.720 --> 01:57.040 Lee was in there, and Doctor Who came along in 1964. 01:57.040 --> 02:02.160 The first Doctor strips in TV comic, we have to remember that they're fun. 02:02.160 --> 02:04.440 You know, the Doctor Who legend isn't set in stone at this point. 02:04.440 --> 02:05.840 We don't know his origin. 02:05.840 --> 02:10.100 The stories differed a lot from what was on television, I guess because they had to worry 02:10.100 --> 02:12.640 about a younger readership. 02:12.640 --> 02:17.960 TV comic was still considered a child's comic for people who were under possibly the age 02:17.960 --> 02:20.600 of 10, which suited me at the time. 02:20.600 --> 02:23.760 But you were conscious that you were never getting the older companions like Ian and 02:23.760 --> 02:26.640 Barbara or even someone like Susan or Vicky. 02:26.640 --> 02:31.160 I guess they needed to have someone for the Doctor to talk to, and in lieu of being able 02:31.160 --> 02:36.560 to pay perhaps the rights to use characters from a television series, of course they invented 02:36.560 --> 02:41.280 the infamous John and Gillian, who stayed with the Doctor right through until his second 02:41.280 --> 02:43.460 incarnation in TV comic. 02:43.460 --> 02:46.040 They were very much the young feeds. 02:46.040 --> 02:51.600 You almost got the impression they were something like six or seven, certainly sub the famous 02:51.600 --> 02:56.640 five type characters, very brave, very supportive of the Doctor, but they were there really 02:56.640 --> 03:01.240 to be the characters that would either run off, get into trouble, or do the traditional 03:01.240 --> 03:03.960 Doctor Who thing of being the line feeds to the Doctor. 03:03.960 --> 03:09.480 John and Gillian being children is very important because they're the audience for TV comic, 03:09.480 --> 03:15.880 and Doctor Who is literally taking a boy and a girl of TV comic's age around the entire 03:15.880 --> 03:16.880 cosmos. 03:16.880 --> 03:20.160 A kid watches Doctor Who and wants to see in the comic strip Ian, Susan and Barbara. 03:20.160 --> 03:23.600 They don't really want to see John and Gillian, who are utterly useless. 03:23.600 --> 03:30.200 The Doctor is an inventor fundamentally, with his grandchildren John and Gillian. 03:30.200 --> 03:34.280 This isn't something that's challenged because there's no origin for the Doctor at all. 03:34.280 --> 03:38.920 He is an inventor with a police box that travels through time and space. 03:38.920 --> 03:43.320 He has a black Gladstone bag full of gadgets and tricks and things, and he invents stuff. 03:43.320 --> 03:48.560 The first Doctor Who strip in TV comic was the Klepton Parasites, which did sort of introduce 03:48.560 --> 03:54.360 the concept, slightly borrowing ideas from the TV series, but without actually duplicating 03:54.360 --> 03:55.360 them. 03:55.360 --> 04:01.400 So we do see the TARDIS in a junkyard at the beginning, and the Doctor does have grandchildren, 04:01.400 --> 04:03.680 which was obviously sorted based on Susan. 04:03.680 --> 04:08.440 There's something about comic strip Doctor Who monsters that is so brilliant because 04:08.440 --> 04:12.320 they're so utterly unique to the strip. 04:12.320 --> 04:18.280 And my favourite really, I think the entire history of Doctor Who comics right up to date, 04:18.280 --> 04:22.440 my favourite monsters are actually the ones from the very first Neville Mane strip, which 04:22.440 --> 04:28.320 are the Kleptons, which are these amazing, silly and slightly cute little reptilian things 04:28.320 --> 04:30.840 with their little snub noses and big ears. 04:30.840 --> 04:35.600 The first TV comic artist, Neville Mane, had a very, very basic style, you know, quite 04:35.600 --> 04:39.760 static, panels of all roughly the same size and dimensions. 04:39.760 --> 04:42.240 There wouldn't be an awful lot of variety in the storytelling. 04:42.240 --> 04:44.360 Neville Mane's stuff was more simplistic. 04:44.360 --> 04:51.360 He was a simple line drawer, but he captured a much greater sense of continuity to the 04:51.360 --> 04:52.360 strips. 04:52.360 --> 04:57.080 You always felt as though you were on this kind of voyage journey with his Doctor character 04:57.080 --> 05:02.000 because he'd usually show the TARDIS whirling away at the end of one story and whirling 05:02.000 --> 05:03.360 back in at the other one. 05:03.360 --> 05:08.120 One of the most significant moments in the history of the Hartnell TV comics is the Web 05:08.120 --> 05:13.560 Planet story because for the first time it brings into strip form something you've seen 05:13.560 --> 05:14.560 on television, a monster. 05:14.560 --> 05:20.800 It is quite an interesting story because it's quite early on in the run. 05:20.800 --> 05:24.880 It's explicitly a sequel to the Web Planet, the Zarbi story, which had just finished on 05:24.880 --> 05:25.880 television. 05:25.880 --> 05:28.960 You know, the Doctor says, you know, to John and Gillian, I have been here before. 05:28.960 --> 05:33.980 When they first came out, the Zarbi were billed as the next big thing and they certainly captured 05:33.980 --> 05:38.640 the imagination of people who were sort of, you know, roughly about ten years old or nine 05:38.640 --> 05:39.880 years old at the time. 05:39.880 --> 05:44.160 The Doctor lands on the Web Planet and discovers that the Zarbi can now fly and they can shoot 05:44.160 --> 05:46.720 venom out of their sting guns. 05:46.720 --> 05:48.480 And you know, they're oppressing the Monoptera again. 05:48.480 --> 05:49.480 And what's happened? 05:49.480 --> 05:54.120 And of course, it's revealed that the Zarbi they can see flying are actually hollowed 05:54.120 --> 05:58.200 out robot Zarbi controlled by some aliens called the Skirkons. 05:58.200 --> 06:00.760 There were some ingenious stories along the way. 06:00.760 --> 06:06.440 The Pied Piper story, if you ever see that one, it's uncannily close to the style and 06:06.440 --> 06:08.520 feel of the Celestial Toymaker. 06:08.520 --> 06:13.960 The Doctor lands in Germany in the Dark Ages, you know, wherever the Pied Piper story is 06:13.960 --> 06:16.440 supposed to be set. 06:16.440 --> 06:19.120 Discovers that all the children are missing and goes in search of this... 06:19.120 --> 06:23.480 You see, he's a wizard, basically, you know, the Pied Piper from Hamelin, who tells them, 06:23.480 --> 06:27.000 the Doctor, that look, you know, the villagers didn't want to pay me to get rid of the rats, 06:27.000 --> 06:28.680 so I've taken their children. 06:28.680 --> 06:32.680 And if you want to get them back, you have to defeat my magic. 06:32.680 --> 06:38.200 So you do get that sort of sense of the fundamental Doctor Who ethos of science versus magic with 06:38.200 --> 06:40.480 science winning out and solving the mystery. 06:40.480 --> 06:45.240 The story which was incredibly brave and possibly something you could only do in the comics 06:45.240 --> 06:47.880 was a story which time ran in reverse. 06:47.880 --> 06:52.400 They landed at the end of the story, everything went backwards to the point when they were 06:52.400 --> 06:56.560 reunited in the TARDIS at the beginning of the story, having figured out that they had 06:56.560 --> 07:01.680 to do everything in reverse to achieve getting back to the point of origin of the story. 07:01.680 --> 07:06.280 There's quite a mystery surrounding who actually wrote the scripts for the early Hartnell Doctor 07:06.280 --> 07:09.960 Who strips, or indeed all the Hartnell Doctor Who strips. 07:09.960 --> 07:16.520 It was thought that the artists wrote them, but after talking to at least, well, one of 07:16.520 --> 07:20.960 the artists, Bill Mevin, he knows, he doesn't know who wrote them, but he knows he did actually 07:20.960 --> 07:23.480 work from scripts that someone else provided. 07:23.480 --> 07:30.320 TV Coming was just a production line of every television, children's television programme 07:30.320 --> 07:32.240 that was issued. 07:32.240 --> 07:36.400 And we worked just on a conveyor belt. 07:36.400 --> 07:39.080 I would get a script and I'd draw it. 07:39.080 --> 07:43.440 Doctor Who was just another script, and a very odd one. 07:43.440 --> 07:46.600 I did Santa Claus. 07:46.600 --> 07:53.000 Doctor Who had to help Santa Claus enlarge his workshop, his floor space, so he sent 07:53.000 --> 07:55.880 him to another planet, as you do. 07:55.880 --> 08:03.120 And I think now, if I were doing it now, Santa Claus would be saving the planet by controlling 08:03.120 --> 08:04.840 the emissions on his reindeer. 08:04.840 --> 08:09.920 Unfortunately, it was one of those which sort of acknowledged the fictional aspect of the 08:09.920 --> 08:10.920 series. 08:10.920 --> 08:15.600 So we have the Doctor and John Gennon landing in the TARDIS at the North Pole to find Father 08:15.600 --> 08:20.680 Christmas is having to work very hard to manufacture lots of toy TARDISes so that they can be sent 08:20.680 --> 08:22.440 to all the children all over the world. 08:22.440 --> 08:25.120 And unfortunately, an evil gnome tries to stop him. 08:25.120 --> 08:30.120 I would defend the Christmas story because, rather as Russell T Davies has defined, Christmas 08:30.120 --> 08:36.760 stories have that little bit slightly different sense of style to them than the regular ones. 08:36.760 --> 08:40.400 Doctor Who was a very difficult strip to draw. 08:40.400 --> 08:43.400 It would take days. 08:43.400 --> 08:47.920 I look at it now and I think to do one of those a week, and I even managed to do Doctor 08:47.920 --> 08:53.880 Who and other small strips at the same time, it was a lot of work. 08:53.880 --> 08:59.560 And as I say, it was one of the most difficult strips I've drawn. 08:59.560 --> 09:02.400 It was quite different than Neville Manning's style. 09:02.400 --> 09:05.480 I mean, it was in colour and he used that quite well. 09:05.480 --> 09:08.800 It was quite sort of bold colour. 09:08.800 --> 09:11.480 More of a realistic representation of the characters. 09:11.480 --> 09:16.120 I think the Doctor started to actually look like William Hartnell a lot more. 09:16.120 --> 09:19.440 And he did clever things where he sort of almost like pulled focus on the characters. 09:19.440 --> 09:23.280 The backgrounds would be slightly sort of blurry to give a slightly 3D look. 09:23.280 --> 09:28.160 The BBC were very, very helpful with reference. 09:28.160 --> 09:32.360 Every time I wanted anything I would get a stack of photographs, especially on Doctor 09:32.360 --> 09:33.360 Who. 09:33.360 --> 09:34.720 I used photographic inks. 09:34.720 --> 09:41.360 I found that the ink used in photography, touching up and colouring, worked beautifully 09:41.360 --> 09:42.880 on the strip. 09:42.880 --> 09:46.800 And I did a lot, I used a lot of that apart from a bit of watercolour. 09:46.800 --> 09:49.200 But it was a very primitive, it was very good for us. 09:49.200 --> 09:50.200 It was straightforward. 09:50.200 --> 09:51.920 It was called lithograph, I think. 09:51.920 --> 09:59.200 Bill Mevin had a more, almost like a birthday card style of illustrating, which made the 09:59.200 --> 10:01.360 Doctor seem a little bit more of a jolly character. 10:01.360 --> 10:07.560 There was a little bit of the sort of Charlie Drake look about him, which, yes, got you 10:07.560 --> 10:11.960 the grandfatherly side of the Doctor, but not the sort of sternness that people kind 10:11.960 --> 10:16.840 of remember the first Doctor as also possessing. 10:16.840 --> 10:21.480 I wasn't working as well then on Doctor Who as I did later, you know. 10:21.480 --> 10:23.600 I wasn't given the chance to develop Doctor Who. 10:23.600 --> 10:28.560 Six months is not long enough to develop a strip. 10:28.560 --> 10:30.520 I had agoraphobia. 10:30.520 --> 10:34.440 I couldn't leave the bungalow for some time. 10:34.440 --> 10:39.280 And I think John Canning moved in then. 10:39.280 --> 10:43.960 He was a very, well, he was a back-slapping gentleman, John. 10:43.960 --> 10:46.400 Every time you say John Canning, you have to do that. 10:46.400 --> 10:50.320 Every character, particularly the Doctors, will always at some point go with that finger. 10:50.320 --> 10:54.960 John Canning's style of art for the strip was quite energetic, very dynamic. 10:54.960 --> 11:01.080 He'd always put his characters halfway through action poses, so they looked quite like they 11:01.080 --> 11:04.080 were moving rather than static. 11:04.080 --> 11:06.000 And his male characters tend to be very jowly. 11:06.000 --> 11:09.680 They would always have these quite sort of thick, jowly necks, including the Doctor. 11:09.680 --> 11:11.920 Very sketchy line art. 11:11.920 --> 11:16.720 Not enormously detailed, very two-dimensional, whereas both Neville Maine and particularly 11:16.720 --> 11:21.240 Bill Mevin had tried to make everything quite three-dimensional because they'd used very 11:21.240 --> 11:24.440 thick and round circular shapes to everything. 11:24.440 --> 11:27.400 Canning was a very straight sketch artist. 11:27.400 --> 11:31.320 I wasn't mad about John Canning's style. 11:31.320 --> 11:36.520 He was a flamboyant gentleman and his drawings were flamboyant, but he didn't get the likeness 11:36.520 --> 11:41.920 to William Hartner that I saw, the early ones that I saw. 11:41.920 --> 12:00.720 It wasn't like William Hartner. 12:00.720 --> 12:05.000 Undoubtedly the most bizarre and most interesting opponent that the first Doctor faced in the 12:05.000 --> 12:08.200 comic strip were the Trods. 12:08.200 --> 12:12.600 And the reason the Trods were there is because the Daleks weren't in TV comic, at least not 12:12.600 --> 12:13.600 at that time. 12:13.600 --> 12:17.920 They presumably hadn't been able to negotiate the rights with either the BBC or Termination. 12:17.920 --> 12:21.560 So rather than spend money, they thought, we'll create our own monsters that maybe are 12:21.560 --> 12:22.960 just a little bit like the Daleks. 12:22.960 --> 12:25.360 They're a robotic race. 12:25.360 --> 12:29.520 You know, no obvious legs, just like the Daleks. 12:29.520 --> 12:34.360 They've got tentacles with sort of lashing rays, you know, just like the Daleks. 12:34.360 --> 12:37.240 They can sort of attack people remotely. 12:37.240 --> 12:39.240 They're a machine intelligence. 12:39.240 --> 12:41.720 That's all we know about what controls them. 12:41.720 --> 12:48.880 They just sit in their city on Trodos and are quite nasty actually to their captives. 12:48.880 --> 12:54.600 There's quite a nasty sequence of a human slave being lashed, which is quite vivid for 12:54.600 --> 12:55.600 the time actually. 12:55.600 --> 13:01.080 Sadly, for the latter William Hartner comic strips and TV comic, they moved back into 13:01.080 --> 13:06.360 the black and white pages, still with John Canning as the illustrator. 13:06.360 --> 13:13.640 In 1994, I was approached by the editor of Marvel Comics to do a cover that would tie 13:13.640 --> 13:20.400 up with my strips that I drew 30 years before, that they were running inside. 13:20.400 --> 13:23.600 They ran inside the comic. 13:23.600 --> 13:30.360 And I did a drawing of William Hartner. 13:30.360 --> 13:35.800 The editor liked the cover so much, he asked me to do the Christmas number cover. 13:35.800 --> 13:37.160 And I thought up this idea. 13:37.160 --> 13:44.920 I did a rough version of it of two Daleks with tubes leading into a barrel of whiskey. 13:44.920 --> 13:48.560 And they're shouting, inebriate, inebriate. 13:48.560 --> 13:52.200 And the fellow who created it, I think his name was Terry Nation, the fellow who created 13:52.200 --> 13:55.400 the Daleks wouldn't wear that at all. 13:55.400 --> 13:58.700 So I'm afraid I wasn't able to do it. 13:58.700 --> 14:03.160 I did a different, a much milder version. 14:03.160 --> 14:10.880 It is surprising that there's so much interest in the Doctor Who strip now, 40 years later. 14:10.880 --> 14:11.880 And there are fanatics. 14:11.880 --> 14:15.440 I mean, I've had people writing to me. 14:15.440 --> 14:17.840 I was sent a questionnaire. 14:17.840 --> 14:19.040 What inks did I use? 14:19.040 --> 14:22.040 What brush did I use? 14:22.040 --> 14:26.560 I kept, I said to one of them, I was a workshop artist. 14:26.560 --> 14:31.600 And he wanted to know where the workshop was in the studio. 14:31.600 --> 14:35.320 But it's, they're fanatics, some of them. 14:35.320 --> 14:38.560 And it's jolly good. 14:38.560 --> 14:42.520 With hindsight, looking at the, all the Hartnell comic strips, you know, in the context of 14:42.520 --> 14:49.040 the whole run of Doctor Who in comics, they are quite basic and childlike. 14:49.040 --> 14:54.560 But you do have to remember, they were aimed at children, you know, so they did fulfil 14:54.560 --> 14:56.560 what was required of them at the time. 14:56.560 --> 15:00.920 But when you compare them now to something that's in Doctor Who magazine, you know, they 15:00.920 --> 15:02.720 just don't compare really. 15:02.720 --> 15:07.440 And they're not really comparable to the TV series at the time on television either. 15:07.440 --> 15:13.640 So they're a little bit of an oddity in their own world. 15:13.640 --> 15:14.640 They're fun. 15:14.640 --> 15:41.960 You can certainly get a smile out of reading them.