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STORY PLACEMENT

THIS STORY TAKES

PLACE BETWEEN THE

INTERACTIVE EPISODE

"SHADOWS OF THE VASHA NARADA" AND THE TV EPISODE "THE LODGER."

  

WRITTEN BY

JUST RICHARDS

 

ILLUSTRATED BY

MIKE COLLINS

   

RECOMMENDED PURCHASE

OFFICIAL BBC HARDBACK

(ISBN 1-84607-984-5)

RELEASED IN SEPTEMBER 2010.

 

CLICK TO ENLARGE

  

BLURB

Station 7 is where the Earth Forces send the equipment captured in their unceasing war against the Daleks.

It’s where technology is analysed. where the Doctor and Amy have just arrived.

 

somehow the Daleks

have found out about

Station 7, and there’s

something there that

they want back.

 

the commander of THE Station knows he has only one desperate defence. Because the last terrible secret

of Station 7 is that they don’t only store Dalek technology. It’s also a prison. And the only thing that might stop a Dalek is...        

          ...another Dalek!

Copyright © Daniel Tessier 2010

 

Daniel Tessier has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

 

 

 

                                                         

 

 

Amongst this last Christmas Day’s stocking fillers was a copy of what could be considered the first Doctor Who graphic novel, and what is definitely my first Doctor Who comic book – The Only Good Dalek by Justin Richards and Mike Collins. Wrapped in a suitably colourful and glossy dust jacket, this slim black hardback with gold lettering couldn’t have been any more appealing to the eye from the outside, and for the first time ever for me, I can safely say the same about a books inside too.

 

Originally having started life as the tenth Doctor’s Dalek Project, Justin Richards’ story has patently been written to look good, rather than to read well, and look good it does. Doctor Who stalwart Mike Collins delivers some stunning renderings of the novel’s set pieces, some of which span more than a page, never mind a single panel. Generally speaking I’m ambivalent about the “New Dalek Paradigm”, but I must admit that in this medium, the chunky and colourful new Dalek race looks extraordinary, and it’s great to see Richards carving up the ranks and having the blue strateg-ists scheming and the red warrior drones swarming around the story’s focal space station - some of this novel’s panels read like a rendering of The Parting of the Ways on acid. I don’t think I’ll ever be as keen on any Dalek design as I was the battle-worn bronze of 2005-2009, but in the world of pencils and ink they wouldn’t have looked half as striking as they do in resplendent red, blue and orange.

 

However, even as a newcomer to the world of Doctor Who comics, I can see that Collins has hardly covered himself in glory when it comes to his depictions of the Doctor and Amy. I realise that graphic novels are an art, and photo-realism isn’t the name of the game, but even so Collins’ romantic, dashing portrayal of Eleven and the wantonly befreckled Amy Pond fail to evoke their live action counterparts; indeed, we have the most peculiar of Doctors looking, for the most part, like a handsome action hero. This is offset to a certain degree by the odd close-up panel and Richards’ perfectly-pitched dialogue, but this still doesn’t quite redress the balance.

 

 

The narrative itself is more of a ‘Best of the Best of the Daleks’ than it is even a ‘Best of the Daleks.’ Varga plants; Slythers; Bret Vyon and Sara Kindgom; Robomen; even marauding Og-rons - Richards draws upon in-numerable Dalek stories here (even Pond muses about Daleks “pretending to be good” again), cherry-picking whatever he thinks will look good on the page and shoe-horning it into a loose-fitting plot about a scientist trying to create a Dalek who’s not only free of his genetic conditioning, but actively reveres all life. Anything of weight or consequence is glossed over in favour of colour and spectacle, and Richards’ characterisation in particular is lacking his usually deft touch.

 

But here’s the thing - I loved every single second of it. Having spent 2010 labouring through some of Doctor Who literature’s most opaque tomes, I tore through The Only Good Dalek in about as long as it would take me to watch an episode on television, not pausing to let a single critical thought breathe until I’d finished. I can now see why the Daleks’ 1960s comic outings are so revered, and what’s more, if this is how much I enjoyed a Doctor Who strip that our resident comic book guy labels a “missed opportunity”, then it certainly bodes well for those that he champions.

 

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2011

 

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

 

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