Dr Who Annuals for a 1960s Christmas!

Following the success of 'National Chumbley Day' earlier in this blog, I've discovered some further examples of festive gift book goodness! 

I hope these little gems are on your Christmas list...

Vintage Doctor Who Target books - deconstructions

Had a few comments about the colouring of some of the vintage Doctor Who Target books. With one or two exceptions, I haven't used any colour photographs on these designs. They are coloured in Photoshop. 

I don't make any claim that the colours are correct. I understand that the Drahvins' costumes (from Doctor Who and the Chumblies) are a pale blue/grey and not pale green - but I think they look better as green. 

I do, however, stand by the colouring of Mavic Chen on Doctor Who and the Time Destructors cover though. His skin had a rather thick orange pallor whilst he wore a pale blue roll-neck under his white apron! That's something I've always been aware of since a kid. I vaguely recall seeing a colour picture many many years ago. 

Here are deconstructions of three of my favourite designs showing the original photographs from which the final covers were made. 

EastEnders - Newly Missing Adventures from your favourite Doctor Who authors!

I did some of these a year or so back to celebrate the 30th anniversary of TV's EastEndErs. 

They seemed to go down well and since EastEndErs is one of the few TV shows I still watch regularly these days, I thought I'd do some more. 

Life would be dull otherwise...

Doctor Who and the Space Sandmen - Target book cover

Here's episode nine of the current series of Doctor Who.

I did toy with - given the nature of the televised episode - not doing a cover for the book and just beginning with the first chapter... but that would probably be taking things a bit too far. 

In the end, you've been warned not to read this book... and you all follow warnings don't you...!

Doctor Who and the Chumblies Remembered...

Let's face it, the Daleks were the most successful element of the first few series of Doctor Who. Kids imitated them in the playground. Merchandisers made toys and books available to the eager public. And the show's production team couldn't wait to bring them back in a new adventure despite the terminal nature of their previous appearance. 

It comes as no surprise then that there were concerted efforts by writers other than Dalek creator Terry Nation to introduce other robot races into the series. The Quarks, the War Machines and even Terry's own Mechonoids all failed to capture that elusive lightning-in-a-bottle that the Daleks themselves did. 

Except for the Chumblies... William Emms produced them in his season three adventure 'Galaxy Four' as the robot servants of the beautiful (sic) Drahvins - female alien space warriors trapped on a dying planet with the pig-like Rills. Unlike the Daleks, they were cute and resembled a child's toy - not that that was unintentional, I'm sure. 

In an alternate universe, this started an avalanche of merchandise which is now much sort-after by collectors of that sort of thing. 

This is some of it...

1. Dr Who in an exciting adventure with the Chumblies - novelisation by Williams Emms of his original scripts - published in paperback by Armada books.

2. The Chumblies - Century 21 mini-album featuring the soundtrack of episode three (!) of Galaxy Four with additional narration by Shane Rimmer and an instrumental version of Aqua Marina used instead of the Doctor Who theme music on side two.

3. The Chumbley Outer Space Book - Hardback annual-style book featuring text and picture strip stories. Introduced the space warrior agent - Maagal - a Drahvin superwoman agent who had a squad of telepathically controlled Chumblies. Also includes the infamous 'Anatomy of a Chumbley' which implied that the Chumblies were powered by 'anger' energy (!).

4. TV Century 21 magazine - Issue 18 - A Chumblies comic strip appeared in colour on the back page - paperwork suggests that it was written by William Emms himself and drawn by an artist. The comic strip ran without a break for a fortnight.

5. The Chumbley Pocketbook and Girl Space-Traveller & Beauty Guide - A paperback stuffed with a myriad of interesting facts about the Chumblies and their Drahvin mistresses. The other 80% of the book contains beauty tips for girls yearning for that "outer space" look...

You can find details about other Chumbley products by clicking here.