Four Alternative Covers For The Daleks' Master Plan LP

I make no excuse that one of my favourite ancient Doctor Who serials is the epic 'The Daleks Master Plan'. The soundtrack is being released on vinyl shortly - yes, all thirteen episodes of it (including the 'Mission to the Unknown' prologue episode). The cover is lovely. Don't get me wrong. Very stylish and atmospheric.

I've done a few alternative versions of my own - including one that harkens back to the 1979 LP of 'Genesis of the Daleks'. 

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The Cluedo Master Plan...

You know me. I rarely do requests. Not because I'm an arrogant content creator and social media influencer but simply because the joke is gone once it's been posted/tweeted. Most of the fun of my tweets and blog posts rely on the element of surprise when seeing the finished article. You don't get that when someone posts a reply to you on a public forum explaining their idea for a joke. Everyone's seen the text already... That's my angle on it. 

But I had a tweet pop up in my timeline the other day that suggested a version of Cluedo peopled by the alien delegates from that classic Doctor Who mega-serial 'The Daleks' Master Plan'. It's one of those silly ideas that when you see it, you think someone must have done it already at some point... but no. It's actually quite a fun concept. And I've @2hrTV to thank for suggesting it.



Here's what I came up with...

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TIME Planetarians of the Year!

He might be 2016's Time magazine Person of the Year but Donald Trump will luckily be long gone by the year 4001...


















And then there's the regional editions of the magazine...

TIME Planetarian of the Year!

It's that time of the year folks! 

All aboard for the Kembel Express!

Yes, you can now "take them back to Kembel, TAKE THEM BACK TO KEMBEL!" and let the Daleks deal with them aboard the only train designed to carry ALL the alien delegates that formed the Outer Systems Alliance back in TV's The Masterplan of the Daleks. 



Not suitable for small children due to small parts that fall off it.

That 300th Blog Post...

Didn't have a clue what to upload as my 300th post so I opened it out to Twitter. 

I only tend to do requests if I find them worthwhile or, more importantly, FUNNY. But Twitter came up trumps with these three nuggets...

A suggestion of an annual for everyone's favourite 60s Trojan Hand Maiden came from @MarkTrevorOwen 

The talented @SiHodges79 requested a sequel to the popular Typhoo Tea promotional book 'The Amazing World of Doctor Who'.

And @conradslater offered up the idea of a Doctor Who edition of TV Quick.

Vintage Doctor Who Target Book Covers - season three

...and straight after season two comes season three. 

When Target reprinted the original three novelisations, they commissioned new artwork from artist Chris Achilleos. His covers were very much in the style of comic book artist Frank Bellamy's cover for the Radio Times which promoted the Jon Pertwee story 'Day of the Daleks'. Colourful comic strip artwork against a white background with a stippled 'banknote' portrait of William Hartnell thrown in. The photo reference of Hartnell that Achilleos used on both 'Doctor Who and the Daleks' and 'Doctor Who and the Zarbi' was the same for each - a detail from a shot of the Doctor being menaced by the Celestial Toymaker from the adventure of the same name. 

In the early days, we didn't really care that such 'mistakes' were made - picture references from the wrong stories being used on the wrong covers. Indeed, we didn't even know of the pictures' origins in the first place. But these days, we are a little more fickle. Put it down to old age. 

I've set the record straight now and used that shot of William Hartnell on my cover for 'Doctor Who and the Celestial Toyroom'. I may be lax in keeping to this rule on other covers but I felt it necessary to do for old times' sake...

Vintage Target Book Covers for Vintage Doctor Who Stories

I can't seem to not do Target book covers these days. Some are serious, some are silly. I'm currently just over halfway through doing the Target covers for Peter Capaldi's second series. Just need to confirm a couple of story titles and check some the origin of some images I'm using. I'm amusing myself that I'm designing these covers without having seen the episodes. I get the feeling some of the original artists were also in a similar situation.

These are a little sideline that I did over an evening last week. They're based on photos that don't get seen all that often but using the original Target design to make them look familiar... if you see what I mean.