It's nice that 'City of Death' and 'Tomb of the Cybermen' have been released on vinyl for Record Store Day. However, they're not really the Dr Who records of our youth. They're actually just double album releases of the CDs from a few years ago. Unedited. Back in 1979, BBC Records and Tapes released a heavily edited (but still coherent) adaptation of 'Genesis of the Daleks' narrated by Tom Baker with a cover that featured Sex Pistols-style artwork juxtaposed with a glam rock coloured version of the diamond DW logo. (Oh, for the days of fluid branding!)
Here's a selection of period style sleeves in homage of that first LP.
I've recently been listening to the old Dick Barton radio serials. Or at least the 1950s Australian re-recordings of them. Virtually all of the original BBC episodes are lost and only a tiny handful exist in the archives. The re-recordings were made when the serial was sold to Australia and have been released on CD by BBCAudio.
It's unclear from the CD sleeve notes whether these 'new' versions were made by the BBC or were produced in Australia. the quality of some of the accents suggests the latter(!)
For some reason, I always had Dick Barton as a wartime hero - something to keep the moral up on the wireless during the blitz. Obviously he isn't. He's just been demobbed in his first episode and bored of life on civvy street.
Anyhow, this is a roundabout way of bringing me round to this little effort I put together...
The Original Radio Serial of "The Mysterious Doctor Who" - broadcast on the BBC during the war.
It's not real but I have enough scribbled down material -not shown - to make it real if any producer wants to commission it. (If they do, they really need to listen to the aforementioned Dick Barton recordings to see what the finished product would sound like. When they have listened, they may have second thoughts...)
One of the problems doing those faux Target book covers for series eight and nine of Doctor Who was the lack of visual material available for them prior to the actual broadcast of the episodes. I argued that if the covers were being done in the 70s/80s, then the cover artists would be in a similar situation... And they were. Check out the covers for Destiny of the Daleks and The Five Doctors.
Now with the episodes well and truly in the past (and the threat of a new series - and new covers (!) - mere weeks away now), I thought it would be fun to revisit the last two series and take advantage of the plethora of photographs available across the Internet to produce them.
I also wanted to hone my Photoshop skills to produce something a little more modern and commercial. As such, I've designed them to look like modern novels - of the kind currently produced by BBC Books. And just to put my own mark on them, I've given them my own logo of sorts. Well, it's just letters in a fancy font really... but you get the gist.
It's that time of the year where the shelves of WHSmith become cluttered with collections of kids books with large print, colourful pictures, desperately unchallenging puzzles and enough content to fill a medium-sized thimble,
Yes, it's the annual "Annual" season!
Here's this year's choice selection from the House of Andydrewz!
You can get all these titles from your local Poundland or charity shop from January 2017.
A few more covers for the ongoing BBC's Legends of Yesterday series. Finally did the Liberator vs the Charlotte Rhodes cover I'd promised myself way back.
Not sure where I can go with it now. Suggestions to the usual address please...
And finally, a nice big image of all 12 of the covers together.*
* Yes, I know there's one missing. I'll show it off later when the actual cover has been published in a well-known long-running fanzine.
I've done three more covers for this promising new comic book series that people seem to like.
Sadly, I can't be arsed to do the insides...
Here's the final three issues of 'BBC's Legend of Yesterday'.
It seems a lot of people wish this little effort was a reality judging from the feedback I've had following the posting of the first three covers.
I'm not sure I'd get away with the last issue though...
DC recently launched a new TV series in which a bunch of forgotten super heroes are recruited to save the future from an evil immortal tyrant.
It stars Arthur Darvil (from TV's Dr Who) as someone who isn't the Doctor. Honest.
It seems the BBC have fired a salvo back at them. Rather than suing, which is the American way, Auntie Beeb has done the British thing and given them a taste of their own medicine.
Meet Adam Adamant, Servalan, Barlow from Z Cars, Tom Howard, Juliet Bravo, Professor Quatermass and the Chinese Detective. Seven forgotten heroes destined to become legends.
Or something like that.
When Colin Baker took over TV's Dr Who back in 1984, he appeared in a complete story at the end of the 21st season.
In their haste to produce some up-to-date new merchandise, the BBC Enterprise licenced a jigsaw company to produce a set of five jigsaws - such had been the success of some that were produced featuring a cardboard cut-out of Peter Davison being menaced by his enemies a few years earlier...
Sadly, their lack of available visual material was quite apparent when the samples turned up on producer John Nathan Turner's.
The jigsaws remained boxed and unmade...
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| Click for larger |
With part one of Doctor Who's series nine safely on the bookshelf, here's the breath bending sequel in which the Doctor confronts his deepest shame, Davros opens his eyes to mercy, the shit hits the fan in more ways than one and we finally find out just who the Magician's Apprentice is...
Not.
You can see the equally mesmerising prequel here!
Posted without comment.
#SaveTheBBC
Seems that BBC cutbacks have affected the forthcoming official Doctor Who Festival planned for this November....
Oh..... and NO autographs!!!
Here's some old Captain Jack pulp novels that defy the space time continuum a bit.
It's nice that 'City of Death' and 'Tomb of the Cybermen' have been released on vinyl for Record Store Day. However, they're not really the Dr Who records of our youth. They're actually just double album releases of the CDs from a few years ago. Unedited. Back in 1979, BBC Records and Tapes released a heavily edited (but still coherent) adaptation of 'Genesis of the Daleks' narrated by Tom Baker with a cover that featured Sex Pistols-style artwork juxtaposed with a glam rock coloured version of the diamond DW logo. (Oh, for the days of fluid branding!)
