Roundel Publishing, a division of Room 5064 Enterprises, an independent publisher based in Manchester, has launched a Kickstarter for The Time Team Unearthed, a collection of Adrian Salmon‘s fantastic artwork from the eponymous feature in Doctor Who Magazine.
Needless to say, if you’re one of many fans of Adrian’s art, then this is surely a must have, but at £30 for the softcover and £50 for the hardback, you’d better start saving.
“In 1999, four fans embarked on a quest to watch every episode of Doctor Who, in order, from the start…”
A fan-favourite feature in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine for a decade, “The Time Team” followed four fans as they made their way through the entire back-catalogue of Doctor Who from the very beginning. Initially presented as a single-page, the feature’s popularity soon saw it expanded to a regular three pages, appearing in more than 100 issues between 1999 – 2009.
Every edition of “The Time Team” was illustrated with striking new artwork from comics legend Adrian Salmon, already known to readers of DWM from his work on the comic strip, most notably “The Cybermen”, which ran as a regular feature from 1994 – 1996.
“Over the last decade I’ve been asked numerous times whether a book featuring my artwork for Doctor Who Magazine‘s ‘The Time Team’ feature will ever become available,” says Adrian Salmon. “I hope very much you will back us on this publishing venture.”
“This book has been a long time in the planning, made with considerable love by editor and designer Will Brooks,” enthuses publisher Gareth Kavanagh. “So if a gorgeous coffee table book crammed with art is your thing, come see what the fuss is about over at The Time Team Unearthed, via Kickstarter.”
“I had just got back home from my day job, driving a delivery van for the Evening Gazette, to find DWM editor Gary Gillatt on the phone,” Adrian recalls of the ”The Time Team” feature’s origins. “He asked if I’d be interested in illustrating a new feature for them called ‘The Time Team’. Gary explained the concept of four people discovering the show for the first time and I was hooked. ‘It’s seven years work and the fee is £40.00 a drawing,’ he said. I’d probably have drawn it for free, if only he’d known!”
In total, Adrian created more than 150 illustrations for “The Time Team”’s original run, before returning in 2011 to continue his work throughout the feature’s second incarnation, as it ventured into the revival series covering episodes from 2005 onwards.
THE FIFTH TIME TEAMER
Regularly described as the “fifth member” of the team, Salmon’s art is synonymous with the feature.
“What Adrian did so brilliantly,” recalls DWM editor Gary Gillatt, “was illustrate the feeling of watching Doctor Who for the first time. He has the ability to look at a scene, get in there and capture the shot the TV show was aiming for but couldn’t afford to do, or technology wouldn’t allow them to do.”
Gary Russell, another DWM editor who brought Adrian into the magazine to illustrate “The Cybermen”, agrees.
“Everything Adrian turned his hand to was just colossally brilliant and unique. There was no other artist like him out there.”
The Time Team Unearthed collects together, for the first time, all of Salmon’s artwork for the original Time Team feature, covering the entire run of 20th Century Doctor Who, from An Unearthly Child through the 1996 TV Movie.
Alongside these, the book also features Adrian’s two DWM covers from 2001 and 2002, plus assorted other related art, including the pieces from the two Time Team reunions for the Nothing at the End of the Lane scriptbooks.
NEVER BEFORE SEEN ART
For the majority of The Time Team’s run, each issue covered eight episodes, and until the Tom Baker era it was usual to only feature a single illustration in each edition. As such, there’s a number of stories from the first three Doctors which never got the Adrian Salmon treatment.
With this in mind, Roundel Books have commissioned more than 20 new illustrations, ensuring that every one of Doctor Who‘s 20th century televised adventures are covered.
These new additions include iconic stories like The Daleks, The Myth Makers, The Moonbase, The Evil of the Daleks and The Time Warrior.
Adrian has already started work on these new pieces, and the publisher will be revealing some during the run of the Kickstarter campaign, starting with a look at Adrian’s gorgeously atmospheric work on the 1966/67 story The Highlanders.
Alongside the artwork, treasures from Adrian’s archive highlight the way the pieces come together, through preparatory sketches and notes, thumbnails, original pencils, inks, and alternate colour tests. Seeing the artwork during its evolution highlights so many little details and adds a whole new level of appreciation to these classic designs.
An all-new commentary from Adrian discusses his memories of working on the feature, alongside input from key DWM creatives and members of the original Time Team.
“YOU WILL BE REWARDED…”
Rewards on offer include an 24-page A5 Sketchbook, containing even more ‘behind the scenes’ images that that just couldn’t be squeezed into the main book; a set of eight A4 prints – one for each classic Doctor – featuring their ‘best’ story, as voted for by readers of Doctor Who Magazine in 2023; and an A2 Poster of the all-new book cover artwork and an A1 poster featuring all 156 classic Doctor Who stories.
Ten backers at the top tier will receive something extra special – a piece of Adrian Salmon’s original inked artwork for one of the new illustrations created especially for the book. These one-of-a-kind pieces will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.
• Check out The Time Team Unearthed Kickstarter here
WHO’S INVOLVED?
Roundel Publishing is an independent publisher based in Manchester,
A division of Room 5064 Enterprises, its sister publishing label Cutaway Comics has successfully Kickstarted comics from the world of Doctor Who, including Eric Saward’s Lytton (“The SF noir of Blade Runner had it been realised in London“, We Are Cult), Omega (“The grand mythic tone gives [Cutaway] a very classy – and distinctive – new string to their bow”, Set the Tape), Paradise Towers: Paradise Found (“A triumph of colour over the forces of oppression”, The Tides of Time) and most recent titles Sutekh, Omega: Eltralla and Faustine, the first phase of their crossover Gods and Monsters event.
Adrian Salmon graduated from Manchester polytechnic with a first degree honours in illustration in 1984, and has spent 40 years working in illustration and comics. in 1992 he broke into comics, simultaneously drawing for the Judge Dredd Megazine and Doctor Who Magazine. His first major comics project was “The Cybermen”, a 24-part monthly strip. since then he has drawn comics for a number of other publishers including IDW, Titan and Cutaway Comics.
Since 2018, he has worked as a colourist and storyboard artist for the BBC Worldwide Doctor Who animations, including co-directing an episode of The Macra Terror.
Will Brooks is the Editor and Designer of The Time Team Unearthed, and another name familiar to Doctor Who fans from his own work across Titan Comics and Big Finish, as well as acting as lead designer for Cutaway Comics and Roundel Books.
Will has long been a fan of Adrian’s work, and has the original inks for the Bernice Summerfield stories Resurrecting the Past and Escaping the Future framed in his hall.
Gareth Kavanagh is Publisher and Commissioning Editor for Roundel Books. He does everything, from teeing up ideas, putting the teams together, overseeing the whole process and posting so many parcels. It’s all glamour, publishing, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise!
Gareth is the proud owner of many Adrian Salmon originals, which are displayed throughout his home.
• Check out The Time Team Unearthed Kickstarter here
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
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: Art and Illustration, Books, Doctor Who, downthetubes News, Other Worlds, Television
Related Articles
-
Talking Time Team: Doctor Who Panel to Panel probes book project
-
Bath Children’s Literature Festival offers comics fun and Doctor Who night as just part of its lineup
-
Andrew Skilleter’s new art book, Illuminart 3, spotlights more of his Doctor Who art
-
In Review: Timeslides: The Doctor Who Artwork of Colin Howard