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| Top: The Doctor defeats a giant lizard in "Orckingdom". Bottom: The TARDIS captures Ian the Were-Lizard. |
I have
tapped into quite a few sources of inspiration for my ‘original’ “Doctor Who”
comic stories but possibly one of the strangest was my liking for the 1984
David Lean drama film “A Passage to India”, which I rented out on video immediately
upon its release. The idea of exploring a strange land with a mysterious
ancient history seemed like a cracking idea for a story so I simply replaced
the British Raj for the planet of the Timelords and threw the TARDIS crew into
an adventure which would illustrate the home-world of the Doctor.
Written as a
direct sequel to “Orckingdom”, “Massage to Gallifrey” is a six-page tale which
sees the elderly time traveller return to his people in order to obtain a cure
for Ian Chesterton; who has been transformed into a were-lizard. Despite a
rather action-packed opening, which involves the TARDIS itself incarcerating a
homicidal Chesterton and the Doctor dodging the laser beams of the Chancellery
Guard, things soon peter out and become rather dull. I clearly tired of
the entire idea and quickly curtailed the TARDIS crew’s exploration of Gallifrey
by having them all captured and sentenced to death by the Timelords midway
through the adventure.
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| Top: The TARDIS lands on Gallifrey. Bottom: The Timelords and Chancellery Guard. |
Even an attempt to explain the motivation behind the
Doctor’s travels through a series of flashback panels is soon replaced by my
simply drawing the character alongside a huge word balloon. The artwork also deteriorates
as my figures significantly increase in size in order for most of the panels to
simply depict their heads.
However, all is not entirely lost with the story, as
the ‘look’ of the Gallifreyans' ceremonial attire would remain for as long as I
drew my “Doctor Who” comic strips, and there is a definite smoothing out of the
mouth area for the majority of my characters; a significant step closer to the
way I draw my figures these days.
loving Custodians, and your old DW strips, I always thought the word "Bum" wasn't used enough by the timelords in the series, by the way. Ha Ha!
ReplyDeleteRe-reading these old stories has certainly opened my eyes as to my mid-teen vocabulary I assure you :-) Indeed I've already lost count how many time I've not used a panel because the Doctor repeatedly uses the expression "Bum Bum Bum" or worse!! Glad you're enjoying Custodians.
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