Doctor Who Panel to Panel: Talking Four Doctors with Paul Cornell and Neil Edwards

Doctor Who: Four Doctors - Cover A

Episode 36 of Doctor Who: Panel to Panel is live and focuses on Titan Comics‘ mini-series Four Doctors, which launches this week – and Doctor Who Comics Day, a Titan Comics-sponsored event that takes place on Saturday.

In this episode, host Jeremy Bement talks about both events with series writer Paul Cornell and artist Neil Edwards.

Doctor Who: Four Doctors, a five-part weekly summer event, stars Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors and their comics companions, running through August and September 2015, in place of the ongoing series. As we’ve previously reported (you can read a preview here), the first issue releases Wednesday 12th August, supported by the global Doctor Who Comics Day on Saturday 15th August.

The e​vent follows straight on from the Issue #15 conclusions of Year One, with the second years of the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors beginning after the event’s blistering finale.

In the podcast, Paul Cornell enthuses about Neil Edwards work on the book and reveals a few teasers about the story, which involves a mysterious photograph that might bring about the end of the universe. Companion Clara doesn’t want to involve recent Doctors in trying to solve the mystery… but of course you can’t hide anything from the Doctors.

Paul’s also immensely supportive of the “comic companions” – Gaby and Alice – created by the Titan Comics Tenth and Eleventh Doctor teams, feeling they’re characters that are just as real as the TV companions. He reveals that, one plan for the story was to have a companion-focused storyline rather than much Doctor interaction which was dropped in favour of plenty of Doctor “fisticuffs” as the Tenth and Twelfth Doctor are soon at each other’s throats with the Eleventh Doctor acting as peacemaker.

The story not only took into account the Titan Comics specific continuity within the Doctor Who TV series continuity but has also had input from the show’s producer, Derek Ritchie, offering several notes to Paul’s script.

Paul also talks briefly about his early career as a Doctor Who comics writer on Doctor Who Magazine and even turns tables on Jeremy by finding out which is his favourite DWM strip that enables the seasoned writer to talk more about the difference between Doctor Who in comics on TV and in comics, despite the advances in special effects. Paul argues there are moments in the comic strips that are as iconic as any in the TV series, going back as far as Pat Mills and John Wagner’s work on the Fourth Doctor for Doctor Who Weekly.

Neil Edwards interview not only talks about his wok on Four Doctors but also about his career, which includes his Farscape work for Boom!, Fantastic Four at Marvel and much more, noting how long he tried to break into the business and then suddenly shot to international attention.

Neil’s memories of reading Doctor Who comics reveal his love of Dave Gibbons work on the strip (and his more general influences, who include Sal Buscema, Bryan Hitch and Alan Davis). He admits capturing the likenesses of the Doctors in the strip took a while to master as he started on Four Doctors – particularly the Twelfth – but is more pleased with his interpretation of Clara which he feels he caught straight away. He also reveals to watching a lot of the recent adventures, to get a feel for the characters.

It’s a great interview with both creators. Head over to either of the links below to have a listen, or stay right here and have a listen!

• You can watch the Doctor Who: Four Doctors trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95NEzwh_w14

• To keep up to date visit DoctorWhoComicsDay.com or connect with Doctor Who Comics Day on Facebook or follow @DW_ComicsDay on Twitter

• Get the latest episode of Doctor Who: Panel to Panel on iTunes or doctorwhopaneltopanel.podomatic.com

Older episodes of Doctor Who: Panel to Panel are archived on the Internet Archive



Categories: Comic Creator Interviews, Creating Comics, Doctor Who, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Television

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