Christian Cawley's Blog, page 216

New Doctor Who Comics From Titan Launch Today!

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

The first two new Doctor Who comics series from Titan launch today, starring the Tenth Doctor and the Eleventh Doctor in their own individual new runs, compete with new companions!

If our reviews of The Tenth Doctor #01 and The Eleventh Doctor #01 didn’t tempt you, perhaps the recent YouTube trailer and this collection of pages from the two new Doctor Who comics will…

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #1

The Eisner Award-winning Nick Abadzis (Laika) and fan-favorite Elena Casagrande (Angel, Suicide Risk, Doctor Who, Star Trek) take control of the TARDIS for their first five-issue arc with the Tenth Doctor, as played by David Tennant!

Gabriella Gonzalez is stuck in a dead-end job in her family’s New York Laundromat, dreaming of college and bigger, better and brighter things.

So when a strange man with an even stranger big blue box barges into her life on the eve of the Day of the Dead celebrations – talking about an infestation of psychic aliens – she seizes her chance for adventure with both hands.

After Donna’s tragic exit, the Doctor thought he was done with new companions. But Gabby Gonzalez is going to prove him wrong… if she survives the night!

On-sale in comic stores from July 23rd, you can also read on your smartphone, tablet or computer via Comixology.

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor #1

A stunning new era begins for the Eleventh Doctor, as played by Matt Smith!

Alice Obiefune has just lost her mother when the Doctor explodes into her life. But what does this grieving young woman have to do with the career of

a 70s musician, an amnesiac alien, and a terrifying cosmic threat?

In the wake of the second Big Bang, find out what the Doctor gets up to when Amy and Rory aren’t around!

Series architects Al Ewing (Loki: Agent of Asgard, Mighty Avengers, Trifecta) and Rob Williams (Revolutionary War, Ordinary, Miss Fury, The Royals: Masters of War, Trifecta) kick off a whirlwind adventure through eternity with artist Simon Fraser (Nikolai Dante, Grindhouse, Doctor Who)!

Just like the Tenth Doctor series, the Eleventh Doctor’s new adventures are also available to read on your digital device via Comixology

Both new Doctor Who comics and some future issues are available to buy and pre-order now at Forbidden Planet in the UK.

And don’t forget, this Saturday July 26th is DOCTOR WHO COMICS DAY - with signings, events and promotions happening in stores and shows around the world! Check the Titan website for more details.

The post New Doctor Who Comics From Titan Launch Today! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Steven Moffat Talks Series 8 In Doctor Who Magazine 476

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

In the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine, showrunner and head writer Steven Moffat gives DWM readers an exclusive guide to the new series of Doctor Who…

‘Oh, it’s a proper blockbuster this episode,’ writes Steven about one of the brand new adventures, ‘so many explosions that Peter Capaldi came in on his day off to watch the Daleks blowing up! I like a Doctor who revels in the destruction of evil in his downtime…’

Also in Doctor Who Magazine 476:

Doctor Who‘s production designer Michael Pickwoad on how to create entire worlds.


Former script editor Andrew Cartmel talks to the writers he employed on what could have been Doctor Who‘s very last season: Ben Aaronovitch, Ian Briggs, Marc Platt and Rona Munro.


Terrance Dicks – script editor, writer and novelist supreme – talks about his work on Target’s Doctor Who books.


DWM pays tribute to the life and times of director Derek Martinus, the man who introduced the Cybermen, Ice Warriors and Autons to Doctor Who.


The Fact of Fiction takes a detailed look at the 1982 Fifth Doctor adventure, Kinda.


The Crystal Throne ­– the brand new comic strip adventure starring Vastra, Jenny and Strax continues.

Click image for hi-res version!

The Time Team watch the Doctor meet River Song for the first time in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.


Jacqueline Rayner and her family get World Cup fever as they wait for the start of the new series in Relative Dimensions.


The Watcher poses more questions and reveals dubious secrets from the archives in Wotcha!


Reviews and previews of the latest CDs and books.


Official news, the DWM crossword, prize-winning competitions and much more!

Doctor Who Magazine 476 is on sale now, priced ￡4.99.

The post Steven Moffat Talks Series 8 In Doctor Who Magazine 476 appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Three Awesome Doctor Who T-Shirts Today Only From RIPT Apparel!

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Here’s a great offer for you, dear reader who likes Doctor Who t-shirts – RIPT Apparel are offering these three superb designs for just $10 each, but the offer closes at midnight tonight, so act quickly!

These designs, Dr Blue, Doctorama Returns and Cabins Collide – by camo, Nertee Designs and AdamsPinto – can also be found on the RIPT Apparel website adorning baby grows, headphones and hoodies, as well as laptop sleeves and coasters (check link for pricing on these items).

So if you want to grab one or all of these t-shirt designs, head to RIPT Apparel forthwith and place your order!

This offer closes at midnight PST on July 23rd 2014.

The post Three Awesome Doctor Who T-Shirts Today Only From RIPT Apparel! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Almost 10.5 Doctor Colum Regan Guests On The PodKast

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

How excited were we this week to welcome onto the podKast a man with a voice like a god, who also doubled for David Tennant in various RTD-era Doctor Who episodes including Voyage of the Damned and Journey’s End?! Say hello, dear listener, to Colum Regan, musician, extra, double and novelist, who is here to talk about just how he became the Doctor’s Double as well as his upcoming book The Fly Guy.

Along with joining us discussing the Doctor Who Series 8 news, Colum helpfully explains just how he went from working as a musician to standing in for David Tennant! It’s a fascinating story, spanning Weevils and Kylie Minogue, and we’re sure you’re going to enjoy listening to it as much as we did.

Colum Regan will have his first book out later this year, “The Fly Guy” and we’ll also hear from him about that.

Oh, and he has a deep, booming, god-like voice. We mentioned that above, but feel it is worth repeating.

Kasterborous PodKast Series 4 Episode 23 Shownotes

The Retardis delivers Monty Python on stage
Camp Cybermen in St Pauls
Goodbye to Clara?
Doctor Who Legacy/Titan mashup, Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor , Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor .
Colum Regan on Twitter: @SansonRegan, and Facebook: www.facebook.com/columsansonregan
Recommendations: Ripper Street Series 1 , “The Fly Guy” (look out for it at Christmas!), Colum’s album “Hotel“

The Kasterborous PodKast theme tune is arranged by Russell Hugo. He’s got the magic fingers, you know.

Listen to the PodKast

There are several ways to listen. In addition to the usual player above, we’re pleased to announce that you can also stream the podKast using Stitcher, an award-winning, free mobile app available for Android and iPhone/iPad. This pretty much means that you can listen to us anywhere without downloading – pretty neat, we think you’ll agree! (Note that it can take a few hours after a new podKast is published to “catch up”.)

What’s more, you can now listen and subscribe to the podKast via our Audioboo channel! Head to http://audioboo.fm/channel/doctorwhopodkast and click play to start listening. You can also comment and record your own boos in response to our discussions! Meanwhile you can use the player below to listen through Audioboo:

You haven’t clicked play yet?! What are you waiting for? As well as our new Stitcher and Audioboo presence you can also use one of these amazingly convenient ways to download and enjoy this week’s podKast.

Use the player in the top right of the Kasterborous home page, or visit the podKast menu link.
Listen with the “pop out” player above, which also allows you to download the podKast to your computer.
You can also take advantage of the RSS feed to subscribe to the podKast for your media player, and even find us on iTunes, where your reviews will help the show considerably.

The post Almost 10.5 Doctor Colum Regan Guests On The PodKast appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

New Venue for Doctor Who World Tour Trip To Korea

Danny_Weasel is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Just when you thought the World Tour for series eight couldn’t get any bigger, it does.

Yes thanks to the outpouring from Korean fans, the Doctors appearance will now take place in the 1000+ seat Grand Ballroom at 63 Building in Seoul.

The Korean leg of the tour, which takes place August 9th, just two days after the London event, was originally set for a smaller location, but according to Soojin Chung, GM of BBC Worldwide Korea “We have listened to and taken our fans advice.” The new venue will mean that even more fans can get in on the action and also means there will be more chances to win a ticket in one of the contests that Worldwide Korea are planning to run on twitter.

First up, starting Tuesday 22 July, the TARDIS will be popping up in prominent locations across Seoul. Fans who spot it can take a creative picture of themselves with the TARDIS, and tweet in the picture to show how much they love Doctor Who with the most creative pictures winning tickets to the fan event.

And for those who don’t think they can manage to trawl the city in search of the Blue Box? Fear not, for you can still stand a chance of winning as a template for a mini cut-out TARDIS will be shared on Twitter through the same account allowing fans to download this to use in their photos.

Fans should post their photos with the hashtag #tardisinseoul. The TARDIS locations will be announced on the Twitter account @doctorwho_kor and the first location was posted on Monday 21st July at 9pm Korea time.

This is a big contest with a total of 100 tickets up for grabs, 50 for each contest so there are plenty of chances to get in there.

Tickets go on sale on Friday 25 July at 9am (KST). Fans will be able to purchase online from yes24.com . Tickets are priced at 15,000 and 12,000 KRW.

So what do you think about all this? Personally I would have liked to see something like this done for the two UK events, rather than a simple ballot to get a ticket, though on the flip side of that we are getting two events, and the first two at that.

But maybe you think that’s just the way it should be, it is our show after all, but do you think that is enough? Should we also have some funky competitions?

As always we want to hear your thoughts and views on all this. Are you going to one of these events, if so, which one? Are you one of our many international readers, are you attending any of the more exotic events like Brazil or Australia? We want to hear from you too! August is shaping up to be almost (almost!) as big a month as last November was for us Whovians, and we here at the big K want it to be huge too, so get typing and give us a message or two.

The post New Venue for Doctor Who World Tour Trip To Korea appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Series 8 “Adventures can hurt” Says Moffat

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

The new issue of SFX is out this week and features an interview with Steven Moffat and preview of Doctor Who Series 8. Some interesting things have come out of it according to a preview on the SFX website, including the end of the “fairytale” feel of the Matt Smith era.

Says Moffat:

“I think it feels more serious. One of the watchwords we have this year is there are consequences for choosing to live like this. It’s not a fairytale. If you have people back home, if you run away it’s going to have an effect on them. And it’s not necessarily always going to be lovely. And does the Doctor make you better?

“We want to make it feel that these adventures can hurt…”

“We want to make it feel that these adventures can hurt…”

This is particularly interesting as it seems to deal with one of the major issues that have been leveled at Moffat, namely the lack of jeopardy, with repeated returns from the dead for various characters throughout Moffat’s reign to date.

Also in the interview, Moffat summarises Capaldi’s “dark” Doctor, noting that he is “…not as immediately approachable and he’s not necessarily looking for your approval. I would like to restore the sense that when he says ‘Wait here, I’ll be back’ you really hope he’ll be back, but you’re not absolutely convinced… What he’s not doing is reassuring you very much.”

Meanwhile for Jenna Coleman’s Clara, there’s a new role that doesn’t seem to have been approached in Doctor Who for many years, “she has to be his human interface with everybody else.”

The full interview includes a Doctor Who Series 8 episode-by-episode preview and can be found in SFX #251, out on Wednesday, July 23rd!

The post Doctor Who Series 8 “Adventures can hurt” Says Moffat appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Five Reasons To Thank Steven Moffat

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Remember when the Internet was a force for good? Remember when fandom was made up of, y’know, fans who loved the show, whatever anyone said?

He gets a lot of stick, but it’s not called for. We’ve a lot to be thankful for.

Steven Moffat has heralded everyone’s favourite TV show for over four years now, and before that, wrote some of the most memorable Ninth and Tenth Doctor stories including The Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances, Blink, and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. He was an obvious successor to RTD’s showrunner mantle and I personally don’t think he gets enough credit for what he’s done.

Detractors are always the most vocal – but he still has plenty of fans, including Extant scribe, Mickey Fisher, who had a post-it note by his computer screen reading: WWSMD. What Would Steven Moffat Do? And his answer, according to Fisher was always the same: “He would just write it better!”

With the 50th anniversary just behind us and a new series (and Doctor!) on the horizon, it’s time to thank Mr. Moffat for the extensive work he’s put in. Here are just a few things to be grateful about.

5. Paul McGann IS The Doctor

What a birthday treat for Doctor Who – not just having McGann return to the role he spent woefully little time in on screen (nonetheless, a job he loved so much, he carried it on in audio form many years later), but also finally seeing the Eighth Doctor regenerate.

The Night of the Doctor was a particular 50th anniversary highlight for the majority of fans. It came as such a lovely surprise, like a Christmas present you get to open early. And this present was a last-minute addition to the celebrations… at least, that’s what McGann thinks: “I felt when I arrived in Cardiff that [Moffat] had probably written it the day before. That was the only gap he had, on that Sunday, because they were trying to finish the big 50th!”

Suddenly, the world was victim to McGann Fever.

Thanks to Steven, we got five-or-so minutes more of the Doctor with the least airtime, but a Doctor who is deservedly loved. And that’s not all Night of the Doctor gave us…

4. Big Finish is Canon

Oh, canon is a grumpy beast. You’ll finally sooth everything out in your head and then suddenly, one comment can make it all change. Reading a novel, poring through a comic, watching charity specials: they’re all great, of course, but lingering at the back of many fans’ heads is one simple question. The oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight. Is this canon?

Thanks to one simple line, Moffat made sure that those brilliant audio adventures are about as in-continuity as they can be without Evelyn popping up on screen: “Charley, C’rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly, friends, companions I’ve known: I salute you.”

Making many hours’ worth of entertainment canon? Moffat, I salute you!

3. Expanding Our Horizons

It’s easy to underrate the importance of conquering America.

Kasterborous has always had American contributors (they’re the ones who spell ‘flavour,’ ‘grey’ and ‘maths’ wrong), but without Moffat, we probably wouldn’t have so many. But that’s a very small example of why succeeding where the 1996 TV Movie didn’t is so important.

Frankly, any expansion of fandom is a good thing, but it’s deeper than that.

With stories like The Impossible Astronaut/ Day of the Moon and A Town Called Mercy, Moffat grabbed the attention of fans and filmmakers across America. More importantly, Doctor Who was taken to the USA and retained its intangible Britishness – and I think that’s why Americans fell in love with the crazy show about a man with two hearts and a big blue box.

When Russell T. Davies brought the show back, he ensured its future, a place in the hearts of whole new generations; when Moffat took the show to vast landscapes to the West (then reeled it back in, taking it to the streets of England once more), he ensured a passion for the show internationally. Because Doctor Who can go anywhere, land on anyone’s doorstep. It always could, in theory. Now, it really can.

2. Matt Smith IS The Doctor

A massive reason to thank Steven Moffat is, alongside Andy Pryor, for casting the perfect actor as the Doctor.

Matt had massive sand-shoes to fill, but he did it. And then some.

Just watch The Eleventh Hour… No, actually, just watch The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. This was the first story the new team filmed and straight away, Matt knows who his Doctor is. He’s got the patter, the alienness, and the confidence – even though Matt must’ve been anything but confident back in those days.

All the previous Doctors loved him too. Watching Doctors Ten and Eleven together in The Day of the Doctor was a dream come true. And when the time came, Matt stepped down at the height of his powers, breaking the hearts of fandom. We have to thank Moffat for seeing Matt as the Doctor through and through, and I’m sure we’ll thank the showrunner, too, when Peter Capaldi makes his full debut in Deep Breath. Nonetheless, we’ll never forget Matt.

Matt simply is the Doctor. And he always will be.

1. Storytelling

I don’t care what detractors say: Moffat’s tenure has been full of the most incredible storytelling. That includes not just the Eleventh Doctor era, but also his work since 2005. Blink is widely celebrated as one of the best stories ever. The Girl in the Fireplace is an overlooked classic. The highlight of Series 1 was, arguably, seeing the Doctor come face-to-face with a scared little boy looking for his mummy. In Silence in the Library, we met an enigmatic new character from the Doctor’s future. And in Forest of the Dead, she died.

Take another look at Series 5, 6 and 7. Matt, Karen and Arthur’s first series remains my favourite, but it faces tough competition from the subsequent two.

The storytelling is not solely down to Moffat, of course: further writers like Tom MacRae, Toby Whithouse, Gareth Roberts, Mark Gatiss, and Neil Cross have delivered us some sublime tales, but all have been nurtured and encouraged by Steven; all have been given that canvas, confidence and bravery.

The amazing thing is, Doctor Who remains exactly the same show as it was in 1963 – but now, I genuinely feel that it could do anything. Absolutely anything. It will never fail to surprise, to scare, to upset, to (yes, at times) annoy, to please, to make you feel warm inside. To be Doctor Who, basically!

Thank you, Steven Moffat.
This is the tip of the iceberg. What are you grateful for…?

The post Five Reasons To Thank Steven Moffat appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Titan Comics Trailer Released

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Tomorrow is the July 23rd 2014, which can only mean the launch of Titan Comics’ two new Doctor Who series featuring the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors embarking upon new adventures!

We’ve already shared with you a great deal of coverage and reviews of these comics, and now, as the day nears, you can enjoy this trailer from Titan to get you in the mood for what is sure to be an exciting new run of time travelling escapes for the two most recent incarnations of the Doctor.

Titan Comics was awarded the licence to print new Doctor Who comics earlier this year after IDW’s licence expired, and the big hope is that the adventures will continue beyond the quality set by the old licence holders. Meanwhile, a new series of Twelfth Doctor adventures will begin in October!

Exciting stuff – we particularly like the fact that Ten and Eleven go on alongside the Twelfth Doctor. We’d love to see them on Big Finish, too, along with Nine, but one suspects that might be a wish too far…

 

 

The post Doctor Who Titan Comics Trailer Released appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Tilda Swinton Should Be The Doctor, Says Paul McGann

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Speaking in June at Collectormania, here you can catch a Paul McGann interview with the Flicks and the City, which he discusses his return in The Night of the Doctor and a new Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.

The Eighth Doctor actor also shares his thoughts on Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor and why Tilda Swinton would have been a brilliant Doctor, as well as why he thinks The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot was the highlight of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary celebrations.

Obviously, these are entirely his opinions, but it remains an interesting interview, despite the slightly showbiz nature of the line of questioning…

The post Tilda Swinton Should Be The Doctor, Says Paul McGann appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Return of Adric – Preview It Now!!

Jonathan Appleton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

It’s 1982 all over again as the Fifth Doctor’s TARDIS lands on your cassette player (oh alright, or MP3 device) and Adric lives again!

Yes, the Alzarian boy genius will be stepping out with the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa, over three decades on from his dramatic departure at the end of Earthshock.

August will see the release of Big Finish’s Doctor Who: The Fifth Doctor Box Set and a sneak preview from one of two new stories in the set can now be heard online.

In truth, there’s not much Adric to be heard in the short scene from Iterations of I, a spooky sounding tale from John Dorney which sees our heroes exploring a deserted house which, you can be certain, will turn out to contain all manner of terrible things…

The creepy setting is perhaps one which you might have expected to see the Fourth Doctor exploring rather than his successor, although it’s undoubtedly promising to hear in this teaser that it’s Tegan’s headstrong insistence on entering without waiting to be invited in that’s going to get her and her pals into a whole heap of bother.

A little more from this story, along with the accompanying tale in the set Psychodrome by Jonathan Morris, can be heard in the trailer over at Big Finish.

We’ve discussed elsewhere the return of this most divisive of Who companions to the fold but there will surely be a substantial bunch of fans, some of them who saw Adric on-screen all those years ago but others who’ve discovered that era since, who will be eagerly waiting to get hold of this set, relishing the prospect of hearing Peter Davison’s first TARDIS crew again.

For a long time Matthew Waterhouse was content to stay away from Doctor Who, perhaps feeling the need for some distance from the programme he’d been a fan of as a child. Happily, in recent years he has returned to the fold, first with the publication of his memoir Blue Box Boy and now with this eagerly awaited Big Finish debut.

It feels good to have him back. At last year’s Dimensions convention in Newcastle he was funny and self-deprecating as he recounted how he’d finally been persuaded to take part in some audio adventures. Apparently he’d been saying to anyone who asked that he’d ‘do a Big Finish’ the day Janet Fielding did one, secure in the knowledge that it would never happen. When that exact thing did come to pass, he had to change the subject of his conditional promise to Tom Baker, feeling safe enough that the old boy would surely never agree. We all know what happened next…

Doctor Who: The Fifth Doctor Box Set can be pre-ordered over at Big Finish.

 

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