Sunday 11 January 2015

Mooretoons - Early "Doctor Who" Adventures - Daleks, Cybermen and Dodo

Top: 'City of Daleks' and a Thatcher!?!     Bottom: Dodo and the Emperor Dalek
Written at a time when I was clearly full of teenage angst and lashing out at anything and everything, irrespective of whether I actually understood the subject matter in question, “The Demise Of The Daleks” is probably the most disappointing story I’ve written… and much of the artwork isn’t that great either. Indeed if I could turn back time and remake just one story, this would definitely be it.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some nice elements to this four-parter, such as being set within the ‘City of Daleks’ and being based upon companion Steven Taylor’s to recover and resurrect the Doctor after he is electrocuted by Terry Nations’ pepper-pot creations. It also introduces the new travelling assistant Dodo Chaplet, a talking budgerigar and provided me with an opportunity to draw my own version of the Dalek Emperor. But all these good ideas are implemented quite appallingly, and the inclusion of a clip-clopping tortoise-shelled behemoth based upon Margaret Thatcher is possibly the worst thought out creature I’ve ever imagined.
Top: The Doctor falls foul of a water trap     Bottom: The Cybermen
Bizarrely, the following story, “The Chasity Of The Cybermen”, despite its somewhat perturbing title is actually one of my all-time favourite tales. And it would appear that some passage of time passed between its creation and that of ‘The Dalek Story’ before it, as the artwork is clean, stylised and the plot rather funny; in my opinion at least. Clearly inspired by the “Doctor Who” September 1967 television story “The Tomb Of The Cybermen”, it concerns the TARDIS crew exploring the Tomb of Metal shortly after an archaeological explorer has been killed by a Cyberman.

Fleeing the silver giant, the Doctor, Steven and Dodo rush headlong into a water trap and only escape by drinking all the liquid up using straws. Having survived, the friends then rush back to the time machine, and depart. Simple, straightforward stuff which let me draw plenty of ‘Patrick Troughton-era’ Cybermen for the first time. 

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