Doctor Who comics, in the weekly iteration of the magazine, were amongst the earliest comics I ever read. I like to boast that this means I was reading Alan Moore comics almost as soon as I could read, which, if you've ever met me, explains a good deal about the person I am, I think. But the comics I cut my teeth on certainly weren't the first comics based on the venerable science fiction series. As the editorial in this magazine notes, "it was less than a year after the series's...debut on television" that a comic strip started running in the appropriately named TV Comic magazine.
I only have three issues of this series, but I'm glad to have a chance to read some of the older Doctors' tales in comics. Aside from the annoying habit of actually referring to The Doctor as "Doctor Who," the stories contained herein are pretty cool little pieces that capture the flavour of the television series quite nicely. The longest of the stories, "Timebenders," deals with a Nazi teleportation experiment that accidentally pulls the Doctor back to the Second World War, where he has to stop the Third Reich from gaining time travel tech. Classic Doctor Who.
One of the other features in the comic is one of my favourite bits of Doctor Who comics, "The Daleks." The Doctor's nemeses get their own story told, from their beginnings as organic beings to their eventual attempts at universal conquest. The Daleks may look slightly silly, but when they're handled well, they're terrifying. These comics, published in the 60s originally, were also reprinted in the main DW magazine, and I always looked forward to the next installment of a series where I could, much of the time, root for the baddest of bad guys. I don't know if it's ever been collected, but if not, it should be.
Onward!
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