Doctor Who: The Widow's Curse

What I try to do with reviews at this Bookshelf blog is keep it simple and spoiler-free, and let you know whether I'd recommend you pick up a copy of what I just read. Seems to work okay. This time, a brief review of Doctor Who: The Widow's Curse (Panini, 2009)



You remember how, in August of last year, I reviewed the previous volume in Panini's series of Doctor Who collections, and noted, with some skepticism, that it arrived costing about a third more than the solicited price? And how I wondered whether, when the next book showed up, they'd pull the same scummy stunt? Well, The Widow's Curse did come out towards the tail end of 2009, and it did cost $32 when it was solicited as a $25 book. Those guys are making it very difficult to justify letting them go without clearing my throat about their business practices.

The contents almost make up for the price hike. Ever since the TV series returned, the comic strip has been treading water, making the mistake of letting rotating teams of creators tackle the strip. That's not to say the individual stories are lacking - Ian Edginton and Adrian Salmon contribute a cracking little three-parter, and Jonathan Morris and Rob Davis give the terrific character of Donna Noble, one of my all-time favorite Who companions, a send-off so terrific in "The Time of My Life" that it's almost worth the cover price alone.

However, the feature would be so vastly improved by letting a single team loose on it. Panini's earlier collections prove this repeatedly, earlier allowing the likes of Steve Parkhouse and Scott Gray the chance to develop storylines and revisit themes. As individual comic stories go, most of these are quite entertaining, but reading them like this, you can never escape the knowledge that they could have been so much better under a single writer's tenure. Happily, the 21 episodes that followed these story - the tales featuring comic-only companion Majenta and due for release in their own collection later this year - were all scripted by Dan McDaid and are said to be much more successful and consistent. I'm looking forward to them - let's just get the price right, Panini! At $32, it's recommended with reservations. At $25, it's about right.

Vworp Vworp! # 1

What I try to do with reviews at this Bookshelf blog is keep it simple and spoiler-free, and let you know whether I'd recommend you pick up a copy of what I just read. Seems to work okay. This time, a brief review of Vworp Vworp! # 1 (2010)



Doctor Who Magazine has been running its tie-in comic for more than thirty years now, and it's usually been a terrific read. There have certainly been patches where it hasn't been as consistently entertaining as the TV show, but frankly, anybody who'd rather watch "Destiny of the Daleks" than read "The Star Beast," or watch "Terminus" over reading "The Stockbridge Horror" just needs their head examined.

It's for people who know that the comic is as vital and engaging a part of Doctor Who's canon as anything else in the fiction that Vworp Vworp!, a fanzine co-edited by Colin Brockhurst and Gareth Kavanagh, is intended. The first in a planned periodic series, the zine is a loving tribute and analysis of the comic. Just like British newsstand comics from the 1970s, it even comes with a free gift - a set of rub-on transfers of the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and some Daleks, drawn by Paul Grist!

Inside, I quickly realized that the writers really know their target audience. The writing, like the best work in Doctor Who Magazine, expertly strides the line between "academic analysis" and "huggingly enthusiastic." The story of "The Iron Legion," the magazine's first serial, is told via interviews with Pat Mills, Dave Gibbons and original editor Dez Skinn, and would not be at all out of place in the professional magazine that they're praising. The writers also turn their attention to the final Eighth Doctor strip, "The Flood," and to Adrian Salmon's thunderously weird "Cybermen" serial. There's a tribute from the magazine's archivist, Andrew Pixley, and David J. Howe resurrects his early '90s "Collectors Corner" feature, designed to look like it came right from an old issue.

There are three new comic strips as well. None of them are necessarily essential, but I enjoyed all of them just the same. "The Master's Life on Mars," by the zine's co-editor Kavanagh and John Daiker, was my favorite of the three. It's a clever little runaround that fiddles with the resume of the last actor to play the Master on television. Daryl Joyce's "Clash of Empires" and Christian Cawley and Justin Abbot's "Time Leech" are also very fun. I think that Joyce has been doing professional work for some time, but there's no reason why the other creators couldn't be doing work for the big leagues pretty soon as well; it's all high-quality stuff.

Overall, it's a really good-looking package, very slick and professional. (It's easy to forget just how terrific fanzines can look these days!) Brockhurst's design work is really impressive, and they're able to cram buckets of entertaining and insightful material into the eighty pages. I enjoyed it all very much and will certainly return to it frequently. Very highly recommended to all Doctor Who fans.

Muhyo and Who

Here's how this works: I finish reading something, and I tell you about it, and I try not to bore you to death. This time, reviews, of sorts, of Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation volume one (Viz, 2007) and Doctor Who: Oblivion (Panini, 2006).



I was mentioning last week about how I bought lots of stuff from the AWA dealers' room. This was one; I spotted the cover and figured, correctly, that my eleven year-old son would enjoy it. Muhyo & Roji's BSI, which concluded a seven-year run in Shonen Jump earlier this year, is simply perfect for his reading bracket, but it really failed to gel with me. Detailing the reasons why the drama failed for me would be like kicking a Goosebumps book for not providing a really good resolution to its teenage wolfman story, or a Harry Potter book for any one of its tedious moments. This isn't intended for grown-ups.

The stories by Yoshiyuki Nishi reach their high points with the revelation of the horrific beast-of-the-week, a critter which will then be instantly and effortlessly dispatched by Muhyo. The art isn't at all appealing, although Nishi has a fine sense of pacing the horrific buildup to each episode's new monster. I won't be continuing with the series, although my son has expressed an interest in picking them up himself. Recommended for middle schoolers.



Continuing to work my way through the complete comic adventures of the Eighth Doctor, I was very pleased to reread this third volume, which starts with one of the best bait-and-switches that Doctor Who has ever pulled, when a new character who seems to be the obvious new companion pulls the twist that you should have seen coming, but then there's a follow-up to that which is still, after all this time, chuckle-inducing in its audaciousness.

"Oblivion" is a really good set of excellently-told stories, ably mixing plot threads from both the earlier comics and the original TV series and presenting a Doctor that we never got to know as well as we should have. And I tell you, if there's a finer Doctor Who moment than when the ghost of Frida Kahlo's father menaces the Doctor's companion, while he's in a graveyard with Diego Rivera on the Day of the Dead fighting aliens, I can't think of it. Highly recommended.

(Originally posted November 03, 2008 at hipsterdad's LJ.)

Doctor Who: The Flood

Here's how this works: I finish reading a comic collection, and I tell you about it, and I try not to go on too long.



The fourth and final collection of Panini's Who comics (the ones that predate the BBC kids' comic I mentioned earlier), this covers the final two years of the Eighth Doctor stories in Doctor Who magazine. Absolutely wonderful work from a host of talented creators, with some additional "director's cut" pages filling out two of the stories, and detailed commentary, including the abandoned plans to have the Paul McGann Doctor regenerate into Christopher Eccleston in the comic!

It's about 250 oversized color pages on nice paper, and is highly recommended.

(Originally posted August 9, 2007 at hipsterdad's LJ.)

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.)