Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Doctor Who: Oblivion



I've mentioned before - I'm sure I have - how much I enjoy the excellent Doctor Who comic. Well, I started reading the third of four collections of the Eighth Doctor strips, and however good it had been, it kicks into overdrive in this set. While Paul McGann only got a single shot at playing the Doctor on TV, Scott Gray was the principal writer, helming a nine-year run of really great comics starring the character. Gray and his artists do a simply amazing job pulling the rug completely out from under you. I couldn't put the book down for a good while, and left it with a cliffhanger in a story where the ghost of Frida Kahlo's father is swatting the Doctor's companion Izzy across the room, and the Doctor's stuck in a cemetary surrounded by space aliens that look like skeletons.

There's an absolutely beautiful bait-and-switch in the first story. There, we meet this girl who couldn't have been more obvious a NEW COMPANION if that was her name and she was wearing a HEY, DOCTOR, PICK ME shirt. Except, no. Not even close. I'm still chuckling about how audacious a move that was, and how it's going to play out. Well, damn.

Anyway, the book's called Oblivion and you can order it by clicking the picture.

It cheered me up a good deal - good, surprising fiction tends to - and I got a good night's sleep and as I'm typing this sentence, I see that the customer who failed to get something I needed in has just done so. Well, now I can get that finished and then continue getting ahead of this month like an awesome little drone.

(Originally posted May 1, 2007 at hipsterdad's LJ.)