Christian Cawley's Blog, page 367

Has Titan Got 2014 Comics License?

BeckyinPhilly 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.

Is Titan Comics the next publisher of Doctor Who comics in the US?

In July, longtime US rights holder IDW announced that their partnership with BBC Worldwide would be ending after December 2013. Speculation had a number of companies eager to partner with the BBC, but Bleeding Cool is reporting that Titan Comics, the imprint of Titan Publishing, has won that honour.

What this means for rumored upcoming titles is still unknown. IDW will conclude the partnership with a special issue commemorating the show’s 50th anniversary, with Titan likely to begin next year with stories featuring the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors.

Bleeding Cool is also reporting that the rumors of Titan buying Doctor Who Magazine and the rights to the comic from Panini, in a possible effort to bring the US and UK publishing rights under one roof, are being denied. But such a move might make it easier for Titan to publish their new titles in the UK.

What do you think? Will Titan be a good fit?

The post Has Titan Got 2014 Comics License? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

First Doctor Console @ Experience!

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.

The replica First Doctor TARDIS console used in November’s celebratory docu-drama, An Adventure in Space and Time, is now on show at Cardiff’s Doctor Who Experience!

The console room is piloted by David Bradley, who plays William Hartnell in the Mark Gatiss-penned drama which charts the origins of everyone’s favourite show. Last month, the impressive reproduction was displayed at Comic-Con Paris, at which both Gatiss and Bradley also turned up to discuss the 90-minute special. Bradley, who recently played Solomon in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, told SFX magazine that he studied a lot of Hartnell’s appearances as research:

“I did watch a lot of episodes and a lot of his earlier films as well to acquaint myself with him, but, as you say, it’s the essence and the spirit of the man more than an accurate… impersonation. I respected him as an actor as well as Doctor Who.”

The console room – displayed to celebrate the Experience’s one-year anniversary -  will be on display throughout the summer at the universe’s biggest exhibition dedicated to Doctor Who. It’s a sight showrunner, Steven Moffat, will be happy to see; last year, when he visited the Doctor Who Experience with Matt Smith, he said that the one thing he’d definitely love on display was the First Doctor console!

It joins an incredible accumulation of props, new and old, including the console used by Doctor Five, Six and Seven, the makeshift TARDIS from The Doctor’s Wife and the Ninth and Tenth Doctors’ TARDIS console room. Philip Fleming, Head of Communications at BBC Worldwide, said:

“There are lots of things that we’ve found people have thought lost forever and we’ve sort of dug them out, like the Ice Warrior costume that you can see upstairs that Bernard Bresslaw wore back in [The Ice Warriors]. That was lost and forgotten and, in fact, when we pulled it out of the cupboard, it was in a pretty shocking state, but we’ve done a lot of work on restoring it.”

The original Ice Warrior costume is accompanied by Skaldak from Cold War, as well as a new-look Cyberman from Nightmare in Silver.

The First Doctor’s console was originally designed by Peter Brachaki (under instructions from Barry Newberry) and was, in fact, a light shade of green, so as to appear white on a black-and-white screen without flaring under studio lights!

An Adventure in Space and Time is expected to air in November to celebrate the 50th anniversary, so we highly recommend seeing this stunning replica. Don’t hesitate to book tickets for the Doctor Who Experience – it’s a Whovian’s dream!

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Whispering Gallery: Lee Sullivan

Patrick Riley 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 man whose work you’re about to see, ladies and gents, is Doctor Who royalty! Our own Alasdair Shaw (of Doctor Who Reprint Society and In Print fame) recently conducted a Kasterborous interview with legendary comic artist Lee Sullivan. In conjunction with that, Lee has kindly agreed to prepare for us an exclusive Whispering Gallery exhibition!

We’ve stayed mostly hands-off this time; Mr. Sullivan picked out all of the pieces and provided us with detailed behind-the-scenes revelations about each. If you’re a Whovian who hasn’t seen his work before, you’re wrong. In fact, we’d be willing to bet a fiver that if you’ve been a fan for at least a year, you’ll recognize the famous creation that we’ve conveniently placed at the top of this showcase.

Well-known police lineups are just the tip-of-the iceberg when it comes to Lee Sullivan. Over the past quarter century, this man has received commissions from the likes of Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly/Magazine, Marvel UK, Virgin’s New Adventures, Radio Times, BBCi, the Royal Mail, and The Minister of Chance.  He was an important voice in designing the original incarnation of Bernice Summerfield.  He’s met multiple Doctors and even had a beer with Sylvester McCoy. Those are just a few of many highlights in Lee Sullivan’s illustration career; we haven’t even mentioned the countless number of official gigs he’s received from non-Whovian franchises! Below you’ll find his well-known classics as well as some newer works you may not have seen, all in mostly-chronological order so that we can view the evolution of the artist.

So leave us your hat, grab a bite, and be our very special guest as we peruse a brand new Whispering Gallery chronicling the career and achievements of Lee Sullivan!

The Usual Suspects, 1999
Pen, brush, watercolour & inks on CS2 board, A3 (approx.)
Private collection
Originally featured in Doctor Who Magazine

Lee Sullivan: This piece has taken on a life of its own. It’s based on the poster for the film of the same name which is in turn based upon the line spoken by Claude Rains in Casablanca: ‘Round up the usual suspects.’ Originally only the first seven Doctors featured – I added others including Peter Cushing, Rowan Atkinson and the Scream of the Shalka versions gradually for its new owner until we pretty much ran out of background, at which point I cut and stripped out the figures and pasted them into a new, longer background. For real, not digitally!

In 2011 the London Cartoon Museum had their exhibition celebrating Who in comics and they asked me if they could use it as a centerpiece blow-up minus all the non-canon Doctors, but keeping Peter Cushing as his version appeared comics too (one of which I did for DWM). I looked at the scans I’d got and realized I’d have to do so much retouching because of the splicing, it would be easier to redraw the whole thing and digitally colour it, and correct some of the heights of the Doctors, along the way. Unfortunately, the only art board I had available to me at the time I absolutely had to start it was A3 in size, which meant it was a very exacting job – the likenesses of the faces are only about 15mm high. I worked with a magnifying glass, and it was a relief when I finally got it into Photoshop and could start working digitally.

It was enlarged to around three metres in length, and made a very nice image for the exhibition; people posed by it for photos.

Minus Peter Cushing, the image is being used as an A3-ish poster for a Who 50th anniversary box set of artworks, along with another piece of mine.

The Usual Suspects Revisited, 2011

Untitled (Dalek), 1965
Biro on yellow paper, 6.5 in × 8 in

LS: My lovely Dad saved this, one of about 4 surviving Who images out of what must have been hundreds I drew as a kid. This was when I was seven, according to the date (added later). I was heavily into both the show, and the TV Comic Hartnell strips, and even more by The Dalek Book and TV21 strip adventures of the ‘Outer Space Robot People’.

Planet of the Dead, 1988
Pen, brush & ink on CS10 paper, A3
Private collection
Sullivan’s first Doctor Who strip commission for Marvel UK

LS: I was initially slated to draw another story, but a likeness I supplied for a Transformers strip of Richard Branson propelled me into the 25th anniversary story featuring all seven Doctors plus many companions in what was my first strip featuring mostly ‘humans’. I tried not to think of all the great artists whose shoulders I was standing on, and enjoyed the idea I’d got at least one crack at joining my idols.

Nemesis of the Daleks, 1989
Pen, brush & ink on CS10 paper, A3
Private collection
Sullivan’s first Dalek strip commission for Marvel UK

LS: My second Who strip and by this time I am (along with writers Richard Starkings and John Tomlinson) ready to get my teeth into Daleks! I tried to visually link many aspects of Who & Dalek lore together, which is why they have movie bases and strip saucers, and my version of the Dalek hoverbout plus an amalgam of the ’60s strip Golden Emperor and the TV Davros version (itself inspired by the 60s strips). Plus of course the return of Abslom Daak, whom I was in complete ignorance of as I’d missed a few Who Weekly (or Monthly?) issues where he’d appeared.

Love & War book cover, 1992
Acrylics, brush & airbrush on CS10 board, A2 (approx.)
Private collection

LS: Virgin’s New Adventure novels were introducing a new character – Bernice Summerfield – created by Paul Cornell and editor Peter Darvil-Evans wanted a visual interpretation of the character as a style guide for the artists and subsequent writers to follow. Paul suggested up-and-coming actress Emma Thompson as a cue, and I produced some illustrations. As a result, I was commissioned to provide the book jacket for her first appearance, in Paul’s novel Love and War. A scathing review of my work followed its publication, and I was never commissioned again by Virgin, though I drew Benny for Emperor of the Daleks in DWM. 20 years later, I sold the art on eBay, and found out that it had quite a few fans, which redressed the balance to some extent. To read my more detailed account of the creation of this piece, please visit this page.

Emperor of the Daleks part 4, 1993
Pen, brush & ink on Marvel US heavy cartridge paper, A3 (approx.)
Private collection

LS: I suppose one of the things that spurs one on as a budding artist are what have become known as ‘iconic images’–ones that stick in the mind long after the details of the story have become fuzzy memories. I have many of these from my 1960s childhood: Brian Lewis’s wonderful Supercar annual drawings; Richard Jennings and Ron Turner’s gorgeous art in the Dalek annuals and TV21 comic; Mike Noble’s Fireball Xl5, Zero-X and Star Trek strips, also from TV21. My Emperor art shown here was one of the first Who images I drew that I knew had the same effect on a later generation. This was an amazingly productive period for me: for the six issues this ran I was also producing 23 pages for William Shatner’s TekWorld; making 30 pages of finished art per month for a six month period. I later met a young guy who was able to describe this double-page spread in great detail, with the same reverence that I would have used for Zeg’s bath in acid in the Dalek Chronicles…

Radio Times Dreadnought, 1996
Pen, brush & ink on Bristol board, A4
Private collection

LS: Radio Times, the BBC UK TV and radio listings magazine, has had a long association with Doctor Who. Frank Bellamy had done lovely artworks in the 1970s for the publication, so it was with enormous pride that I accepted the commission to produce a regular comic strip for the title, based on the Paul McGann TV movie. Gary Russell scripted and Alan Craddock provided colours. It was a very exacting task: an average of 6 panels per week with a recap, story progression and cliffhanger all within a half-page format. I had to design the pages around the word balloons, so I created versions of them with an early desktop publishing program and worked images around the remaining spaces. It ran for 42 weeks; new editorial management took over and it was curtailed earlier than had been planned, not least because there would be no series based on the US movie, but it remains a high point in my career, both technically and from an audience-reach perspective; in those days each edition sold over 4 million copies per week.

Robot Doctor Who strip, 1998
Pen, brush & ink; watercolour, inks & airbrush on CS2 board, A2 (approx.)
Whereabouts unknown

“It disappeared from the Radio Times office before I could get it back. I suppose it’s a kind of compliment.” -Lee

LS: Matt Booker was the last editor I worked with at the Radio Times. He put a science fiction magazine dummy together – eventually named Robot – for potential publication by the BBC and aimed at an early- to mid-teen age group. It was to feature various features on things like X Files alongside SF strips – and Who was an obvious candidate. Doctor Who was in the wilderness years, and the TV Movie hadn’t succeeded in reviving interest in the show, which led to the idea of a future (penultimate) incarnation of the Doctor, initially with no memory of who he was, which would have freed it from continuity to some extent and given it a clean slate. I based the incarnation very slightly on Alan Rickman, and the Cybermen went back to cloth-faces but could run!

However, focus group testing of the target audience revealed no particular interest in either Who or comic strips. The time wasn’t right and so the few dummy copies are all that ever existed.

Death Comes to Time, 2001
Pen, brush, watercolour & ink on Bristol Board with Photoshop finishes, A3/A4
Webcast animation image for BBCi

LS: At an awards ceremony in early 2013 I had the weird experience of meeting both David Tennant and Troughton’s son David within a few minutes of each other, having earlier been bought a pint of beer by Sylvester McCoy. Such are the rewards of hanging around with Dan Freeman for a decade or so, who not only was BBC producer of Doctor Who during the Wilderness Years for this iconoclastic webcast (the first of its kind), which he also wrote and for which I provided images to be animated by James Goss, who at the time worked for BBC online. Drawing for animation made an interesting change from sequential comics work, as all the elements were drawn separately: figures, ‘props’, backgrounds etc. And I got to have lunch in the Blue Peter Garden, eating BBC sandwiches near the bust of Petra. I did two further webcasts, Real Time and a version of Shada which is available on the recent DVD.

Dan now writes and produces the wonderful off-shoot Minister of Chance crowd-funded audio series, which I again provide occasional images for, and which features many of the Who principles.

Battles in Time Cybermen story page 1, 2006
Pen, brush & ink on Bristol board with digital finishing, A3
Colours by Alan Craddock
Created for the Doctor Who Battles in Time magazine

LS: This was aimed at a younger age group than my previous Who work; I’d recently finished working on Redan’s Thunderbirds Magazine which was also aimed ‘young’ so I adapted to it okay. Originally I was supposed to be doing art for the Trading cards that accompanied (and were the point of) the title, but photo images won out with the trial groups and I was given the strip instead. Until recently I’ve been slightly embarrassed by the simplicity of it and some of the work generally. I realized it didn’t require as much input from me, and I was still recovering from the after-effects of my parents’ deaths. That had completely de-focused me; I had virtually no interest in my career and wasn’t really trying very hard in the middle of the run on Battles in Time. I managed to pull myself around by the end; looking at it recently I’m much happier with it now than at any point since I did it. I was surprised to find that I quite liked some of the images.

Royal Mail Doctor Who strip, 2012-2013
Pen & ink on Bristol board with Photoshop colouring & Illustrator lettering, smaller than A4:
“Printed as a tiny thing indeed.” -Lee
Created for Royal Mail Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Stamps issue

LS: This was originally going to be on the back of the ‘mini-sheet’ set of 5 stamps. However, due to some issues regarding which companion should be in the strip, it was only included in the Prestige Stamp Book, though happily still backing the mini-sheet design and stamps, and to my great delight, next to a Neville Main picture of the First Doctor from his first comic strip.

Another very exacting pushed-for-space job, it also marks my debut as co-scripter (if you can refer to this slight story as ‘scripted’) and letterer. The co-ordinates on the image of the invitation card are the reverse of Gallifrey’s.

IDW Prisoners of Time 2nd Doctor strip, 2012-2013
Digital via Photoshop and Manga Studio

LS: I hadn’t done very much strip art since The Amulet of Samarkand graphic novel for Disney a couple of years previously, so when I was asked to do this for the 50th Anniversary series I was pretty nervous – could I still remember how to do sequential art? Could I hit the right kind of look for a ‘retro’ story which wouldn’t alienate the modern Who audience? Could I do all that in the time allotted? You, dear reader, will be the judge as to whether I answered the first two questions. As for the latter… earlier in the year, I had succumbed to every geek artist’s dream – a Wacom Cintiq 24 inch graphics ‘tablet’. Essentially, you draw directly onto a screen with a stylus. Combining hand-drawing skills with the flexibility of image-manipulation in one program, I love it so much that if I were not already happily married, I would ask it out on a date.

Anyway, there are lots of in-jokes both in the script and the visuals to appeal to long-term fans; I got to draw my fill of Police Boxes; most of the characters in the first Who annual; the glorious Zoe; and of course, every right-thinking person’s favourite Doctor, Patrick Troughton. Its publication to tie in with the Doctor’s Golden Anniversary was a lovely way to celebrate my own Silver Anniversary as a professional Doctor Who artist.

One of the things I managed to chat to Mr Tennant about – as I have said to all of the [Doctors I've met] – was how pleased I was to have earned some part of my living by working with his image. Tennant joked that perhaps we shared some kind of odd bond, and I think everyone who has become associated in one way or another with the show feels the same; as Hartnell once said; “I think that if I live to be ninety, a little of the magic of Doctor Who will still cling to me.” Who better to have the last word?

For lots more from Lee, explore the links below:

Facebook: Lee Sullivan
Facebook: Lee Sullivan Art
Twitter: @LeeSullivanArt
Web: Lee Sullivan Art
K Interview: Lee Sullivan (2013, Alasdair Shaw)
K Interview: Lee Sullivan (2005, Christian Cawley)
Icshi.net: Love and War–A Retrospective by Lee Sullivan (We highly recommend this!)

Named for the 2009 IDW comic, The Whispering Gallery is a semi-regular feature here at Kasterborous that seeks to showcase the careers of unique, distinguished, and talented Whovian artists in a museum-style format.  Miss a previous exhibition?  No problem!  Just strap our pre-programmed vortex manipulator to your arm and have a glimpse at past Whispering Galleries…

Jon Wesley Huff
Andy Walker
Carolyn Edwards

Know of a great Whovian artist you’d like to suggest for a future exhibition?  Tweet or email us!

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Doctor Who Memorabilia Sales Soar on Ebay!

Andrew Reynolds 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.

Auction site eBay has reported that sales of Doctor Who memorabilia have soared Peter Capaldi was announced as Matt Smith’s successor.

According to their records, sales of souvenirs relating to Matt Smith have increased by 80%, but he remains in second place, behind the most popular Time Lord of all, when it comes to merchandise – Capaldi’s fellow Scot, David Tennant.

Whether or not you choose to see this as a sign that others are desperately buying up all the memories they can before Peter Capaldi arrives and ruins it all or that, filled with love for the show, fans who had no Capaldi-based merchandise to snap up (there are still copies of John & Yoko: A Love Story still available…think about that) bought everything in sight to express their love in a monetised fashion, is entirely down to you.

If you’re interested in Doctor Who memorabilia, the Twitter account @eBayWho features a number of rarities that are listed each week on the popular auction site.

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How Long Did Each Doctor Spend in the TARDIS? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Joe Siegler 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.

With the Twelfth Doctor incoming at Christmas, you might be wondering just how long his predecessors spent in the TARDIS.

Was Tom Baker really the Doctor for seven years? Did David Tennant manage to play the Doctor from his first appearance to his last for longer than Jon Pertwee?

The answers are below in our infographic, created by Kasterborous contributor Joe Siegler. Enjoy, and feel free to share and embed…

Embed This Image On Your Site (copy code below):




Courtesy of: Kasterborous Doctor Who News

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Anime Doctor Who on YouTube Geek Week [VIDEO]

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.

We love Doctor Who animation, and while Dreamland might suffer in comparison to Infinite Quest, neither ever seems to stand up against the efforts of fans.

So while the following may not be as serious as the wonderful work of, say, Otaking, it’s certainly an accurate representation for many Doctor Who fans of the era of the Eleventh Doctor (in particular, the Amy and Rory episodes)…

Produced by Rug Burn, this Anime Doctor Who was one of he many excellent Geek Week specials included recently on YouTube. It features the voices of Matt Danner (Doctor Who), Ed Skudder (Amy), Zack Keller (Rory), Davros (Justin Murphy), & Daleks (Michael Johnson).

 

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Spot Christopher Eccleston in Thor 2 Trailer!

Drewbee 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.

By Great Odin’s Beard! Can it be that our good Ninth Doctor has gone bad in a big way to menace the God of Thunder? Verily, it is thus!

Christopher Eccleston, who played the Ninth Doctor in 2005, will be seeking vengeance against Thor himself as the character of Malekith The Accursed in Marvel’s big budget sequel, Thor: The Dark World.

Last week, the official full-length trailer for the highly anticipated sequel was released, and although it barely features a glimpse of Eccleston’s villainous Lord of the Dark Elves, the actor’s voice can prominently be heard as the tension builds:

Thor, your bravery will not ease your pain! Your family, your world, will be…EXTINGUISHED!

It’s just too bad that he didn’t slip up and say “…EXTERMINATED!”

The synopsis of the thunderous sequel reads thusly:

One year after the events of Marvel’s The Avengers, Thor battles to save the Nine Realms from a mysterious enemy older than the universe itself. A primeval race led by Malekith, who is out for revenge, intends to plunge the universe into darkness. Confronted by an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot overcome, Thor must reunite with Jane Foster and set out on a dangerous journey that will force him to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Thor: The Dark World is scheduled to be released October 30th in the UK and November 8th in the USA.

The main question now is – especially for Doctor Who fans – if Dark World finished filming it’s three-month shoot in December 2012, and Eccleston wasn’t filming anything until June/July 2013 (the new HBO series The Leftovers), why couldn’t he fit in a few weeks of filming on the 50th Anniversary Special, which shot almost entirely during April?

Why did Ninth Doctor actor decide to pass on the Who celebration, especially after two reported meetings with Steven Moffat and at least a couple signs (“If I told you, I’d have to shoot you.”) that he very well could be involved? Like Malekith’s reasons for wanting revenge on Thor, this question may also be shrouded in mystery for eons to come…

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Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor Records Top Audience Figures

Andrew Reynolds 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.

With figures greater than most Series 7 episodes in the UK, the broadcast of Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor is estimated to have pulled in an extra 1.5 million international viewers on top of the 6.5 million who watched Peter Capaldi do his best William Hartnell impression in the UK.

According to BBC America there were 895,000 total viewers for the show which was broadcast at 2pm Eastern Time. This made it the best telecast ever outside of primetime among the 25-54 demographic, and it was only beaten by The Royal Wedding as the best non-prime telecast ever on the channel.

What’s more, Trendrr.TV reports that other than sporting events the grand unveiling of the Twelfth Doctor was the most talked about programme on social media in the good ol’ USA – beating the likes of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never on MTV and Keeping up with the Kardashians on E!

Getting into specifics, there were 11.84 million views of the Official US Doctor Who Tumblr page since the announcement – with fans creating three million Doctor Who related reblogs on the day of the show.

Twitter activity around the special was double the sci-fi series’ season average for BBC America and at the peak of the activity; six out of the ten trending topics in the US were related to the Twelfth Doctor.

Doctor Who continues to be the highest rating programme on the network.

In Canada, the show was broadcast on SPACE, which reported 412,000 viewers at its peak – making it the numero uno network for the key 18-54 demographic during that time.

While in Australia, 40,000 bleary eyed Aussies tuned in to the live broadcast at 4am ET with a total of 200,000 watching the show or its more sleep friendly repeat on ABC2.

So far an additional 41,000 have watched the special on the iView, ABC’S catch up service.

So where were you when they announced Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor? How many times have you watched the special since? Were you one of those tweeting, GIFing and blogging about the Twelfth Doctor?

(via Doctor Who News)

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Reviewed: Desperately Seeking Susan Foreman

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.

Broadly speaking, there are two types of Doctor Who book. The first of course is the fictional variety, the novels, make your own adventures and low-cost reads to get people interested in books for an easily affordable price. This type also includes comic strips and the bulk of the annuals and yearbooks.

A second type of Doctor Who book, that covering the show in a non-ficional capacity, also exists. Arguably able to cover a wider range of topics than fiction is able (or allowed) to, such titles can be found in the majority of bookshops, both online and off. Since the 1970s more and more non-fiction Doctor Who books have been released, from the Terrance Dicks/Malcolm Hulke work The Making of Doctor Who in to the recently released Doctor Who and Race (reviewed shortly on Kasterborous), perhaps with our own Ultimate Regeneration coming somewhere in between.

However, Richard Kirby’s Desperately Seeking Susan Foreman is quite unlike any Doctor Who-related book I’ve ever come across.

The premise behind the book is straightforward – Kirby aims to obtain an autograph from every living actress that has portrayed one of the Doctor’s companions. He’s not interested in Frazer Hines or Mark Strickson, but Wendy Padbury and Sarah Sutton. There is little room for male companions in this book (a shame in some ways) but this shouldn’t put you off.

In fact, Desperately Seeking Susan Foreman should perhaps be seen as a useful historical document for fans. Kirby is an older fan, and as such can recall the events of the day the first episode was broadcast in 1963. Better still, the first chapter reveals that unlike earlier editions (this is the first version to have been released through a publisher) Carole Ann Ford has supplied an autograph to Richard, thus completing his quest (for now).

Early on in the book, the recollections of the early days of Doctor Who set the stage for Richard’s search, underlining his love for the series and providing a building block for what comes later. However it is the introduction that perhaps shapes the remainder of the book, where the author dedicates his work “to the collective memory of Lis Sladen, Caroline John, and Mary Tamm”.

There are 26 female companions in Richard’s list, from Carole Ann Ford through to Jenna-Louise Coleman, and each autograph is proudly displayed alongside some opinions and recollections of the show throughout the years. You can easily see which eras the author has more enthusiasm for, spending quite some time discussing Sarah Jane Smith, for instance, but his ability to easily pull in modern references and provide brief details of his autograph quests makes this one of the most unusual, readable and personal accounts of Doctor Who‘s 50 years.

To purchase your copy of Desperately Seeking Susan Foreman, head to Amazon where it is available for Kindle (£6.89) and in paperback (£7.61). You can also find more information on the .

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Coleman Confirms Series 8 Filming to Begin in January

spikeombre 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.

Jenna Coleman has confirmed that the eighth season of Doctor Who will start filming in January of next year. Speaking to Zap 2 It, Coleman explained:

It still feels very much like I’m at the beginning, but what’s quite nice is I’m working on [Death Comes to Pemberley] at the moment. I sort of have a break and then I have another break, after Matt [Smith] goes, later in the year because I know I’m not shooting [Doctor Who] until January [2014]. It means I get to explore other projects and come back, and that keeps me very happy.

This revelation may not come as a surprise to Doctor Who fans. After all, the leaked BBC memo that confirmed Matt’s departure also suggested an air date of Autumn 2014 for the next series, so a January shoot would certainly make sense.

But until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just keep watching Doctor Who Live with all your beliefs, and prove to yourself that Peter Capaldi is going to rock the TARDIS!

Roll on Autumn ’14…

(Via Cultbox)

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