Doctor Who: Land of the Blind

Doctor Who Magazine Comic Collections #26

by Scott Gray (Writer, Editor), Dan Abnett (Writer), Lee Sullivan (Illustrator)

The first five Doctors and their companions journey into new dangers in these comic stories from the pages of DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE!

Featuring six astonishing tales…

VICTIMS

THE LUNAR STRANGERS

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

CHANGE OF MIND

LAND OF THE BLIND

BRINGER OF DARKNESS

The Fourth Doctor and Romana go shopping on the planet Kolpasha – but end up as suspects in a murder case with a monstrous twist!

The Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough land on a moonbase, and encounter some alien bovines hiding a deadly secret!

The First Doctor, Ben and Polly enter a deserted city with a gigantic intruder – one that wants to consume their minds!

The Third Doctor, Liz and the Brigadier investigate a series of impossible murders, and face a psychotic psychic!

The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrive in Denossus: an alien city in the thrall of the all-powerful Vortexians!

Plus: a special Dalek story! Victoria sees a new side to the Second Doctor as he challenges his oldest enemies!

ALSO! A commentary section where the comics creators reveal the secrets behind the stories, featuring never-before-seen artwork!

AN ESSENTIAL COLLECTION FOR FANS OF DOCTOR WHO AND CLASSIC BRITISH COMICS!

Genres: Doctor Who, Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure, Time Travel

132 pages, Paperback

First published July 18, 2018

About the author

Scott Gray, born Warwick Gray, is a comic book writer from New Zealand who lives and works in the UK.

There is more than one author with this name

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of tales of the first 5 Doctors from the Doctor Who series as first aired on TV, yet these tales have little to do with the series on TV. Writing comics or books give the writer to go where no TV/movie budget would dare to go, or any visual effects company would be payable to go.

If you are fan of New Who these antics in the comics might just not be your cup of tea. If you however like me enjoy the tales of the older Doctors, mine is especially the fourth played by Tom Baker, you are in for treat.
The stories all do not outstay their welcome and there format is nice. The Doctors still have something innocent as they have not yet been covered by the modern series, in which I might say the 4th Doctor hit a straight homerun when he ran into a later Doctor.
These are fun little comics albeit in B/W format and enjoyable. A good thing you run in these comics now and then in 2nd hand shops or websites and they are very nice to the wallet then.

For Doctor Who fans mostly a must read.

[Alex Sarll]

After its golden age in lockstep with the New Adventures, DWM's comic strip made the not unreasonable decision to diversify – but based on this showing, did a pretty patchy job of it. It doesn't help that two of the first three stories here have art by Colin Andrew, who manages to go straight from sketchy to stilted and confusingly lacking in storytelling, without ever hitting the sweet spot you'd think might lie in between. The first of them is a lightweight but passable Dan Abnett story with the Fourth Doctor and Romana embroiled in a killing spree on a fashion planet; the numerous typos and spelling mistakes suggest Gary Russell is every bit as good an editor as writer. The third is an early writing gig by Nick Briggs, and in the afterword he apologises for the embarrassingly sexist portrayal of Polly, which is a start, but hardly the only problem with a cramped, garbled First Doctor vs giant slugs farrago. Fortunately, the two are split by a Gareth Roberts & Martin Geraghty strip with the Fifth Doctor and friends facing camp space cows in a moonbase under siege, set in the space year 2015 AD. It admirably fulfils Roberts' definition of Who as 'hardcore whimsy'. Then you've got Kate Orman writing Pertwee in classic 'kill a psychic, don't really GAF' mode, and two pretty good Troughton stories from a Scott Gray still trading as Warwick, in one of which that occasionally-glimpsed steel beneath the Second Doctor's gentle exterior is tied to the Ka Faraq Gatri idea of later years. An odd assortment, but certainly not one without interest.

[DrAshleyWho · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the Wilderness Years finally dawning on fandom and more than halfway through its pre-TV Movie days, the strip starts to move away from the incumbent Doctor to showcase past incarnations, and maybe we’re currently living in an era of overwhelming nostalgia but in a time when past Doctor stories (like the ones for Big Finish) strive to be as authentic to their eras as possible, it’s refreshing to see that mentality not apply here; these are stories that felt like they were written in the 1990s with that decade’s sensibility for storytelling in mind.

The first three stories (Victims/The Lunar Strangers/Food for Thought) are lightweight quirky affairs with antagonists like space cow criminals akin to Beep the Meep and giant molluscs who eat people in man-made food tablets, but the back half is where the ‘Missing Adventures’ DWM era picks up steam. Wilderness Years book scribe Kate Orman contributes the Third Doctor story Change of Mind where the Doctor and Liz Shaw investigate a psychic killer (and we get the tragic explanation as to why Liz left UNIT, a similar reason as shown in the ending of Gary Russell’s The Scales of Injustice), and Scott Gray’s Land of the Blind takes place in a trippy psychedelic dystopia guarded by insectoid aliens (one of the strongest ‘design-a-monster’ entries that ever won a Who comic contest) with a critique of the hypocrisy of the justice system.

But even more meaningful is the seven-pager Bringer of Darkness, also penned by Scott, in which the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria stumble across a Dalek squad marooned on a forest planet and trying to send a distress beacon; it’s an example of VNA-era introspection that surprisingly works efficiently in bringing out a more ruthless edge to Troughton’s incarnation and elevated by a framing device written by Victoria after she left the Doctor. It, alongside The Lunar Strangers published a year later, also heralds the debut of Martin Geraghty, easily my favourite DWM artist post-Ridgway.

[Philip Higgins · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are pretty slight tales featuring the first five Doctors from the "Doctor Who Monthly Magazine" of the early 90s. The artwork is patchy, but they have warmth and wit and the commentary section at the back is always interesting: I love Gareth Roberts' description of Doctor Who as 'hardcore whimsey'.

The Third Doctor story was shaping up nicely - Liz Shaw, 70s Cambridge, psychics, the Brigadier, Bessie etc. - but let's just say the conflict was resolved fairly abruptly (bang). These Panini collections (omnibuses? omnibi?) are well presented, with classy cover art by David Roach. They are increasingly on the skinny side though (only 120 odd pages here). Four stars is generous but it's Doctor Who done by people who care, with a sense of fun and adventure (unlike much of the latest agenda-driven incarnation).

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was surprisingly entertaining. I've become rather jaded on the comic book continuations of the Doctor Who series. While I am a huge Whovian, the comics are really very inconsistent in terms of their quality. This collection (which contains material first appearing in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine) was very enjoyable. For the most part I felt the writers and artists captured the characters remarkably well. And the stories were fun, if short, and really built off the TV adventures. I was also happy to the early incarnations of the Doctor being represented. I'm a big fan of the first two Doctors and they are represented here in some really fascinating little stories.

[Billy Martel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review per story…

Food For Thought: great story with disturbing twist. The dialogue and art are not great and the description of Polly as a “fashion accessory” is just gross. 3/5 stars.

Change of Mind: Fuck to the yes. Great mad science story with evil psychic professors. The ending was awesome. 5/5

Land of the Blind: absolutely fantastic! I can see why they named the book after this one. A near perfect Doctor Who story with an awesome twist and fantastic art. 5/5 stars.

Bringer of Darkness: this kicks ass. No matter how sweet the Doctor’s incarnation, he’s still a bastard. It reframes why Victoria left in a great way. 5/5 stars.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of five stories (and a short from a Summer Special) featuring the first five Doctors from the vaults of DHM (Doctor Who Magazine) from the mid-90s. Nice original stories and some lovely black and white artwork - although the artists don't always capture the actors likeness, in places Tom Baker's Doctor looks more like Worzel Gummidge!
But on the whole would have to recommend this to all interested in Dr Who.

[John Parungao · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's great about this book is that it features comic strips with various Doctors and their respective companions. It also features writing from the likes of Nicholas Briggs, Kate Orman, and Gareth Roberts. All of whom have contributed to either the Doctor Who novels, or the Big Finish audios. It also features some great artwork from Martin Geraghty, who is currently one of the producers of the animated versions of classic Second Doctor stories.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were all pretty solid (though I didn't think "The Lunar Strangers" really utilised its specific TARDIS crew or the tone of the era it was set in) but as someone who loves Victoria Waterfield, "Bringer of Darkness" especially was a real treat, with some moody black-and-white artwork effectively complementing a story about both a re-encounter with her father's murderers and a realisation that the person who saved her is less heroic than she once thought him.

[Stephen Theaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A treat of a book, with black and white retro adventures for the first five Doctors, often with television companions that weren't allowed to appear in the comics of their day. A self-aware commentary from the creators pre-empts criticism, e.g. as to the second Doctor's encounter with a "speculum".

[Jefferson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of well-written and well-illustrated stories featuring the first five Doctors.

[Cameron Turnbull · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, before getting into what I thought of each story, these were a particular dull set.

• Victims - 8/10
I really enjoyed this one. A fashion planet where the hot new commodity is a spray that makes you look younger (side effects may include death). At its heart this is a comedy-murder mystery which is handled well enough. I laughed at quite a few of the jokes which would have really fit the Season 17 aesthetic. In saying this, the mystery did lack in some places but I had such a fun time regardless

• The Lunar Strangers - 5/10
This story was just very bizarre. I mean, chain smoking hind legged alien cows with guns is a funny idea. Just maybe as a one-shot though and not a 3-parter. It’s an okay story and one people can take either way on if they like it or don’t

• Food for Thought - 1/10
I did not enjoy this story at all. The plot is paper thin and even then gets solved off-panel. It’s a lot of running ‘and then this happened’ storytelling. Nothing really flowed together and Polly got barely anything to do except complain. Thankfully, Nicholas Briggs has dramatically improved since this story (which is great because he’s one of my favourite contributors to Doctor Who)

• Change of Mind - 7/10
This was a nice camp story for the Third Doctor. A science conference is having its members killed - can Doctor Who crack the case? Of course he can, but I enjoyed the ride nonetheless

• Land of the Blind - 6/10
The opening to this story should be straight out of a horror movie. It’s so brutal without any physical harm being done. However though, the titular Land of the Blind nails the characters of the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe down but other than that has very little going for it until the final part. And that final part is worth the wait. It’s still a good story.

• Bringer of Darkness - 8/10
This final story comes from the perspective of Victoria Waterfield and oh goodness is it brilliant. This is only one part but it feels so much longer. The Second Doctor is definitely at his scariest in this story and the Daleks are always fun inclusions!

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has one off adventures with most of the classic Doctors. I remember reading them the first time around in Doctor Who magazine. Interestingly, the one I remembered most was the space cows one. Though all the others are good too. The writers have captured the characters of each Doctor and their companions well. The art is black and white, and that does work for the stories, though some of the depictions are not that great.
A very good read.

[Wilde Sky · Rating 2 out of 5]

A series of short graphic stories related to a TV series.

I found this book disappointing - the illustrations and stories were all confusing / weak.