Tuesday 15 March 2022

Doctor Who - Series thirteen on Target

This is late! 

I should've posted this last year in the week following the final episode of the series. These are the six covers I produced for series 13. It would be interesting to see how Target would've handled this back in the day - six short novelisations (more profitable) or a single big one (probably more logical for a six part story).

As for the episodes, I really enjoyed this series. Some great visuals, a far ranging story packed with colourful characters and some great twists along the way. It certainly corrects the issues I have with the last two series.

The negatives are fiddly nerd things. Not enough Kate Stewart (in fact, why the heck was she even there?). The timeless child storyline had no real pay off as the Doctor is still running from her past rather than facing up to it. Chris Chibnall seems to have a real issue with the Doctor he created. By all means, make her more fallible but don't make her a failure - especially on a personal level. Hopefully, this will be addressed in her final two episodes... but I've an awful feeling the regeneration will hinge on the unrequited love between her and Yaz rather than tackling her dodgy past with Division.

As for the covers, I adopted the mid 70s style for them. I'm a great fan of these comic strip/pop art pieces. Ones like Peter Brookes' 'The Green Death' et al with a smattering of Kirby, Bellamy and Achilleos. 

Again, the lack of dynamic photographic source material hampered the compositions - especially for the first one. Some of these were done after the episode aired which I don't like doing. The spontaneity of using just the visuals from photos to create the design rather than picking out characters and incidents from the stories is something I prefer... and was no doubt a factor in the original Target artists' creations back in the day. 

I hope you like them.







Just to catch up, here's my covers for the following two specials 'Eve of the Daleks' and 'Legend of the Sea Devils'. I'll probably return to the Sea Devils story once the show airs later this year.

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