Thursday, 17 July 2014

Great Unreleased Doctor Who Merchandise of the 20th Century - part four

THE MASTER ANNUAL 1975

Published by World Distributors Ltd - 1974 - Original price 95p

A year or so before the release of their 'Dalek' annuals, World Distributors Ltd looked to other parts of the 'Doctor Who' to exploit. Some bright spark came up with 'The Master Annual'. This test copy features all the usual picture strips, zany art and bewildering features one would expect. The stories include such luridly titled efforts as 'Terror on Alpha One', 'The Golden Death', 'Invasion of the Puff Creatures' and 'Killer from the Asteroid Belt'. The features have a bent towards villainy rather than space (like the previous annuals based on the parent series). There's an A-Z of Villainy which includes topics such as 'blackmail', 'Lizzie Borden', 'arsenic' and 'the Conservative Party' together with a game which gives the players a chance to kill the Doctor by trapping him in a pit of “Perluvian acid snakes”

As is usual, the is no credit for writers or artists and the copyright is simply credited to the BBC. Documentation from the original publishers suggests a print run of 5,000 was supplied to them from a printing house in Spain though there is no record of either their storage or destruction in the UK.