During the success of the new Doctor Who when it returned in 2005, I spoke with the Daily Mail, who were keen to run a daily strip of the Doctor.
The right folk at the BBC agreed and I asked Steve Parkhouse to come on board as illustrator. The first story written and three day’s worth drawn when the BBC had an about-turn when a committee decided that what with the launching of their Doctor Who Adventures, plus the ongoing strip in Doctor Who Magazine, a daily strip would only confuse readers.
Personally I can’t imagine that the readers of Adventures also read the Daily Mail but what do I know. And so another mighty project binned. I think I see a theme developing here…
Doctor Who fans will recall this wasn’t the first attempt to get a newspaper strip based on the show off the ground. Back in the 1990s, John Freeman (he of this parish), then editor of DWM, pitched a strip drawn by Gerry Dolan to the Daily Express, who’d shown interest during a meeting at an Angouleme Festival, but the show’s declining ratings and apparent cancellation dampened their ardour.
Categories: British Comics - Newspaper Strips, Doctor Who, Featured News, Other Worlds, Television