… The Two Doctors in question being Doctor Who and Marvel’s Doctor Strange.
It was TV Doctor Who script editor Andrew Cartmel who proposed a Doctor Who/ Doctor Strange crossover and submitted a plot to me around 1991/92, about the same time as he was writing Evening’s Empire, a six-part story for Doctor Who Magazine drawn by Richard Piers Rayner that ran into more than a few deadline problems but was eventually released as special edition of Doctor Who Classic Comics.
As the then editor of Doctor Who Magazine, I either commissioned Lee Sullivan to do the piece of promo art below, or he did it for fun. Lee’s like that.
Marvel US Editor-in-Chief Tom de Falco, a Doctor Who fan himself and who, in the early 1990s, regularly visited Marvel UK to discuss its direction, ran workshops on comics creation and more, liked the idea of a crossover. Howver, he felt that at the time, with the reduced interest in Doctor Who that was the result of the BBC’s ‘hiatus’ for the show that effectively ended the Seventh Doctor’s period on TV, there was no advantage in proceeding with a crossover which would, in his view, benefited Doctor Who more than it would Doctor Strange.
Although the story – centring on a rock band that had done a deal with a demon to assure their success – never happened, I believe Andrew has since used some of the ideas discussed in his novels.
For the benefit of posterity, here then is a Two Doctors image you may never have expected to see…
Doctor Who meets Doctor Strange, drawn by Lee Sullivan
2018 update: Lee freely admits to this art’s Steve Ditko influences, and when he posted it On social media following news of the passing of the Spider-Man and Doctor Strange co-creator, the image gained plenty of attention. Not least from visual effects designer and author Mike Tucker, who was very involved in the TV adventures of the Seventh Doctor, who posted this wonderful faux novel cover in response…
Mike Tucker’s cover for “The Two Doctors” by Ben Aaronovitch, adapting Andrew Cartmel and Lee Sullivan’s graphic novel starring Doctor Strange and the Seventh Doctor from Doctor Who into prose… not!
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, Doctor Who, US Comics
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