The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, in partnership with Doctor Who Magazine, published by Panini Comics UK, has just announced a Doctor Who Monster Competition for children that will see the winning creation appear in a special comic strip.
Children aged 8 – 12 are being challenged to design a Doctor Who monster of their very own, and see it featured in a special comic strip in Doctor Who Magazine, the official magazine about the long-running SF show.
We don’t think there hasn’t been a competition like this since TV Action ran something similar, back in 1972. Back then, the winner, Ian Fairnington, dreamt up the Ugrakks, who appeared in a one-off strip that put the Third Doctor in peril, written by Dennis Hopper and draw by Gerry Haylock.
The Doctor Who Monster Competition is open to children aged 8 – 12 and all entries must be submitted by Thursday 1st August 2024 to be considered for a short list of just 15 designs, the final overall winner decided by a special panel of experts led by Doctor Who Magazine editor Jason Quinn, Doctor Who comic strip writer and former DWM editor John Freeman, and artist Mike Collins.
Also involved in the judging will be Doctor Who expert Archie Phillips, from Milnthorpe, brought on board as a local superfan of the show.
The overall winner will be publicly revealed at the start of a special Sixty Years of Doctor Who Comics event at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2024 (27th- 29th September 2024, Bowness-on-Windermere www.comicartfestival.com), celebrating sixty years of many science fiction fans favourite time and space traveller in comic strip form, staring in TV Comic, way back in 1964!
Jason, John and Doctor Who comic artist and series storyboard artist Mike Collins will lead a special session where we come up with a possible story featuring the winning monster, working with the audience to create a special comic strip tale to amaze DWM readers in 2025.
Along the way, the audience will find out some of the secrets behind how a Doctor Who comic is created, and Jason may tease you about upcoming stories – and Mike will draw a key scene from the planned comic on stage.
The Judges
Celebrating 40 years working in comics, Mike Collins has drawn pretty much every major character at the big companies: X-Men, Batman, JLA, Spider-Man, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Judge Dredd, Slaine and Rogue Trooper amongst them.
Best known for drawing Doctor Who, since the show’s triumphant return twenty years back, for Doctor Who Magazine, IDW, Titan and two Dalek graphic novels for BBC Books, as well as writing and drawing Doctor Who online games for Tiny Rebel.
Also known as one of the original Transformers artists, he’s also drawn two well regarded and successful original graphic novels: an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and the docudrama about the first moon landing, Apollo. Since 2004, he’s illustrated many graphic novels for the Norwegian market featuring Gunnar Staalesen’s noir hero, Varg Veum.
Last year, he was artist on the Mike Batt/David Quantick La Croix Noire comic, tied into a concept album.
In recent times, he’s worked on several How To Draw books and part-works: enjoyed a one hundred-issue run on How To Draw Marvel magazine; three volumes of How To Draw Fortnite; How To Draw Five Nights at Freddies; and he currently illustrates the D&D Adventurer partwork magazine.
In animation, he’s worked on shows as diverse as Warhammer 40k and Horrid Henry, and many Welsh language pre-school shows.
In TV, he works as a storyboard artist on many genre shows: Doctor Who, Fool Me Once, His Dark Materials, The Famous Five, Good Omens, The Witcher, The Midwich Cuckoos, The Lazarus Project and many more with less genre cred (Silent Witness, Grace, and Industry, to name but three).
Jason Quinn trained as an actor before becoming a writer and editor. He has previously been Creative Content Head at Campfire Graphic Novels in Delhi but is currently editor of Doctor Who Magazine at Panini Comics.
Jason started work in comics as editor of Barbie magazine for Marvel UK back in the 1990s, before heading off to India to work for Campfire Graphic Novels as their Editor in Chief. Eventually, he washed up back in the UK at Panini in Tunbridge Wells, where he has worked on such titles as Ben 10, Spectacular Spider-Man, Doctor Who Adventures and is the current incarnation of the Editor of Doctor Who Magazine.
Jason appears at the Festival with support from Panini Comics.
The Doctor Who Monster Challenge has been co-ordinated by John Freeman, publisher of downthetubes.net, a former editor of Doctor Who Magazine and, currently, editor of Star Trek Explorer magazine (his third tour of duty on the official title), published by Titan Comics. He has worked in the comics and magazine industry since the late 1980s, initially at Marvel UK, and helped set up Titan’s MagazinesDepartment in the 1990s.
Past work also includes running Lancaster Literature Festival, developing the ROK Comics mobile comics portfolio, editing the short-lived but enjoyed STRIP Magazine comics anthology, and writing various comic strips including Doctor Who, Dan Dare, The Real Ghostbusters, and, most recently, Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies, for B7 Media.
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.
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