Rounding Up the Roundel Books creators!

By Matt Badham on 6 June 2026 • ( 0 )

Feature by Matt Badham

The Time Team Unearthed - The Doctor Who Art of Adrian Salmon (Roundel Publishing)

Roundel Books is a publishing venture from publisher Gareth Kavanagh of Vworp Vworp! magazine and Cutaway Comics fame. Specialising in books about the wider world of Doctor Who, it has several emerging strands including the DNA of Doctor Who series, discussing different eras of the show with a focus on its producers; Go Figure, which celebrates 20 years of 5.5” Doctor Who action figures from Character Options; and The Time Team Unearthed, a collection of Adrian Salmon’s artwork from the classic “Time Team” feature, which ran in Doctor Who Magazine.

In this interview with Gary Russell and Will Brooks of Roundel, alongside artist Adrian Salmon, we get a glimpse behind the curtain at Roundel Books with a particular focus on The Time Team Unearthed.

The DNA of Doctor Who – Graham Williams (Roundel Books)

How did Roundel Books come about?

Gary Russell: It started really when we were chatting about doing the first Go Figure book. We wanted to create an identity that was separate to Cutaway Comics – Cutaway Books seemed the obvious thing really, and it was that for about ten minutes. But we were keen to separate the different parts of Gareth [Kavanagh]’s empire really. Cutaway Comics is very successful, and we felt that Cutaway Books would forever look like the second-cousin, twice removed who only gets a lump of coal for Christmas. Then, once the DNA of Doctor Who series of books came into the equation, it was even more obvious that we were going to do a regular book imprint with more than one title and after a brainstorming session in Cardiff, we settled on Roundel Books, because it had a name uniquely relevant to the worlds of Doctor Who.

And we came up with a pretty logo too, based on the stained glass roundels in the Philip Hinchcliffe TARDIS, which were seen for the first time on the Hinchcliffe DNA book.

Please tell me more about The Time Team Unearthed.

Will Brooks: The original “Time Team” feature debuted in Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) in 1999, and ran for just over a decade. The concept was simple; four fans watch Doctor Who (in order, from the beginning) and discuss it. Almost from the beginning it was a popular feature, often topping the magazine’s annual polls, and a part of that appeal was the way it was illustrated – with brand new artwork in every edition by Adrian Salmon.

All of us at Roundel had been big fans of Adrian’s work for decades – Gary gave Ade his first commissions at DWM in the 1990s, Gareth has his own gallery of Ade originals in his home, and I used to be terribly cross when the Time Team would get bumped from an issue of DWM for more time-sensitive features, as rifling through the pages in search of Ade’s latest masterpiece was always the first thing I did when a new issue came out!

In total, Ade created more than 150 illustrations for the original iteration of the feature, and collecting them together was something Gareth, in particular, had been keen to do for years.

We got lucky in 2024, that when Gareth phoned me to ask if I fancied putting together a proposal to pitch to Adrian, asI was already in the middle of writing one. The idea had been pitched to Adrian a few times over the years but I think what really tempted him on this occasion was the chance to go back and “finish the job”.

For most of the Time Team’s run, they covered eight episodes of Doctor Who each issue, which usually meant you’d get in at least a couple of stories. At the same time, the early years of the feature only had a single illustration, so on occasion Adrian would have to choose between stories to illustrate. By the time they reached the Jon Pertwee era they’d started including occasional secondary illustrations (which later became a regular thing), but there were about 25 stories from the early years which were ‘missing’ from Adrian’s portfolio.

Adrian Salmon: When Will and Gareth approached me about the book, they suggested that I could illustrate the missing “Time Team” artworks from the original run. Amazingly, stories like The Daleks, The Moonbase and The Time Warrior hadn’t got a drawing!

In all, I’ve drawn 23 new pictures to fill in the gaps up to Survival. The book also features extra new artworks for the Daleks Invasion of Earth 2150AD film; The Pescatons and Slipback audios; and a brand spanking new artwork cover!

WB: The book forms a complete run of ‘classic’ Doctor Who stories – from An Unearthly Child to The 1996 TV Movie – all viewed through Ade’s unique lens!

I have to say, getting new illustrations through every couple of weeks for the last year or so has been a complete joy, and I’m a bit sad to have reached the end of the project. I’m tempted to start inventing stories for Ade to illustrate next, but I think he’s probably looking forward to a break!

How has looking back at your past work been for you, Ade?

AS: I hope that the new illustrations fit into the gaps without looking too much like they were drawn years after the others. I wanted to try and replicate the original experience of creating the artworks for Doctor Who Magazine as closely as possible. I sent roughs and pencils to Will Brooks and Gareth to approve before finishing each off and uploading to our Google Drive folder. Each picture took about ten days or more to complete, which also involved either watching the episodes to be illustrated, viewing the tele-snap reconstructions available or in some cases reading the original Target novelisations looking for ideas.

It was fascinating looking back over the original illustrations and to be able to chart the progress of my style through the ten years of the feature as I tried out different tools and techniques, moving from hand watercoloured artwork to digital Photoshop colouring. It was perhaps a little sad too remembering times past, but mostly it was a thrill to revisit the Time Team again. But after being immersed in this book for over a year, I’m more than ready to take a break!

Please tell us about the extra material in the book and what it brings to the project.

WS: Alongside the artwork, Ade has also written a mammoth commentary about the work, looking at each illustration and explaining the way he creates, and why he made certain choices. We’ve also interviewed lots of other people for this, including all four members of the Time Team, four DWM editors, designers and more, to get their input (and choose their favourite pieces). Ade is also brilliant at keeping hold of everything, so as well as the finished artwork, the book includes a huge array of what he calls ’scraps’ – original sketches, preparatory drawings, pencils, inks, alternate colour tests… it’s the ultimate time capsule of his work on the feature.

AS: I had the foresight to save a lot of my sketches, pencils and inks for a majority of the illustrations, which I think will give the readers a unique perspective into my creative process as it was and became.

Whilst Doctor Who is only a part of my career as an illustrator, it’s a very important one to me as it put me in front of the fans on a regular basis giving me a body of work with a cohesive theme to it. I hope the book will be like walking around an art gallery and offer the reader a glimpse into my private creative world.

What are your hopes for Roundel books and how’s it going so far?

GR: We feel that the DNA of Doctor Who range can run a long time; that there are more Go Figure books coming (looking at toys beyond Doctor Who, as well) and with Ade’s Time Team book, bang, we realised that yes, this was an imprint doing stuff that other independent Doctor Who-centric publishers weren’t. That’s the joy of this world, there’s aways room for everyone, because we’re all offering different books.

• Order a copy of The Time Team Unearthed here from Roundel Books, along with their other publications

Meet The Team…

Gary Russell is currently the Project Editor for a number of Roundel Books projects, including their on-going The DNA of Doctor Who and Go Figure series. He produced over fifteen animated episodes of classic Doctor Who “missing stories” for BBC Studios, and was executive producer and head writer for the 26-part children’s animated series Prisoner Zero for ABC in Australia. Before that he was a script editor for Russell T Davies on Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures at BBC Wales, also producing and directing spin-off animated episodes for CBBC and computer games for BBC Interactive/Sumo Digital and Tiny Rebel.

Gary has written more than 30 books, both fiction and non-fiction, for Harper Collins, Virgin, Penguin, Ebury and BBC Books, including the New York Times bestselling The Art of The Lord of the Rings Movies tetralogy. In 1997, he co-created Big Finish Productions and for eight years was the producer/director/script editor responsible for over 300 hours of audio drama. Gary has also written comics for Marvel Comics, IDW, Panini and Titan.

A revised edition of his Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia is scheduled to be published next November by BBC Books.

Adrian Salmon is best known for his Doctor Who work – his bold iconic style has been used by clients to illustrate comic strips , text stories , features and prints , spanning a 30 year career.

For Doctor Who Magazine, he drew a stylish “The Cybermen” comic strip in the 1990s and was the illustrator on the long-running “Time Team” , whilst drawing and colouring numerous comic strips for the magazine. For Eaglemoss UK he created Doctor Who posters for their *artist signature* line of collectables and had the honour of being included in the BBC Worldwide 50th Anniversary prints boxset and from 2018 worked exclusively as a animation cell colourist and storyboard artist on the BBC Doctor Who animations , which included co-directing episode three of The Macra Terror.

He co-created The Faceless : A Terry Sharp Story, about a horror film director who fights a shadowy occultorganisation by night in 1960s London , published in 2005 by Image Comics.

For Cutaway Comics he has drawn their Orcini and Sutekh comics and is drawing The Happiness Patrol-inspired comic “Unhappy Ever After” next.

Roundel Publishing is an independent publisher based in Manchester whose books also include The DNA of Doctor Who, a series of lavish large format books examining the key creatives behind the series down the years, launched with in-depth looks at the stories created under the auspices of producers Philip Hinchcliffe and Graham Williams, and Go Figure! celebrating 20 years of 5.5” Doctor Who action figures from Character Options, Go Figure! is the ultimate guide for any collector.