Free Doctor Who by Alan Kistler Page B

to parents as well wasn’t a concern. The narratives, drawn by Neville Main, were simplistic fare, much lighter than the TV show. There was still violence and death, true, but it didn’t feel as dark as the show would become.
    The first story, “The Klepton Parasites,” features two preadolescent children named John and Gillian who decide to meet their mysterious grandfather, a man who calls himself “Dr. Who.” They find a yard rather than a house, empty except for a police box that’s bigger on the inside. The Doctor, drawn to resemble William Hartnell, looks up as the children enter his ship and says, “You must be John and Gillian! How nice to meet you!”
    This Doctor wasn’t sinister at all, in keeping with how the character had softened by the time the comic appeared. He was a curious, mischievous, occasionally reckless inventor with a bottomless black bag that held all manner of strange gadgets, rather like a science fiction Mary Poppins. The comic never addressed whether he was an alien or a scientist native to England. When their first adventure ended, Dr. Who suggested taking his grandchildren home, but John said he would be happy to continue traveling through space and time.
    There was little concern for continuity between the strip and the TV program, although an early strip clearly provided a sequel to the TV story “The Web Planet.” The comic had its own sense of fun, depicting aliens and stories not easily brought to life on television and even dabbling in experimental storytelling, including one adventure shown in reverse to indicate time running backward. TV Comic published the strip until 1971,at which point it moved to the pages of TV Action and featured the Third Doctor. This new and dynamic incarnation of the comic appealed to a broader fan base.
    The strip moved back to TV Comic in 1973 and remained there until 1979. This second TV Comic era didn’t match the quality of the TV Action era. In fact, some of the Fourth Doctor stories were just Third Doctor strips with Tom Baker’s face drawn over Jon Pertwee’s. In these republished stories, television companion Sarah Jane Smith was altered to become a new character named Joan Brown.
    In 1979, the strip moved to Doctor Who Weekly, a new magazine dedicated to articles, reviews, commentaries, and interviews surrounding the show, published by the UK branch of Marvel Comics. The comic quickly shifted gears, hewing much closer to what appeared on screens. The hero became simply “the Doctor” rather than “Doctor Who” and was clearly identified as a renegade Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. The first regular artist was Dave Gibbons, who gained greater acclaim later as co-creator of the comic book series Watchmen.
    Doctor Who Weekly evolved into Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly, then The Official Doctor Who Magazine, and later Doctor Who Magazine. To this day, it is the longest running magazine based on a television series and happily shows no signs of stopping.

5
    The TARDIS and Time Travel
    â€œWell, I came up with the name from the initials: Time and Relative Dimension in Space.”
    â€”Susan, from “An Unearthly Child” (1963)
    Â 
    In the first official pitch by C. E. Webber, he suggested that the Doctor’s time machine be invisible due to light-resistant paint. He believed a futuristic spaceship would put off viewers disinclined to science fiction stories, while disguising the time machine as a common public object, such as a “night-watchman’s shelter,” would make it seem too much like a magic door in a fairy tale, putting off adults. Invisibility was his visual compromise.
    Newman objected to an invisible spaceship—which Webber suggested be hidden in a van for the opening story—saying the machine needed to be iconic and visually interesting. The idea came that the Doctor’s ship would have the ability to change shape, camouflaging