Animated Doctor Who

After all the recent excitement over a possible new Star Trek animated show, the BBC is reporting that David Tennant and Freema Agyeman will carry their roles as The Doctor and Martha over to The Infinite Quest, a 13 week animated serial written by former Marvel UK staffer Alan Barnes and directed by former Doctor Who Magazine editor Gary Russell

The animated series that will be a weekly segment during the second series of CBBC's Totally Doctor Who, with Anthony Head (who played Giles on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and the Headmaster in the Doctor Who School Reunion episode) will star as Baltazar, Scourge of the Galaxy.

Although Cosgrove Hall have recreated lost episodes of Doctor Who and the BBC website has webcast several animated Doctor Who stories (notably Paul Cornell's Scream of the Shalka starring Richard E. Grant as the Doctor), this is the first time that a Doctor Who animated story has been made for TV, which is pretty exciting.

Back when I was editor of Doctor Who Magazine, myself, Reeltime Pictures Keith Barnfather and Kevin Davies (and, I think, Nick Briggs) worked up a pitch for a Daleks series which I showed Terry Nation at a Doctor Who convention in Chicago. Nation liked the idea but his agent then stepped in and told us we couldn't talk to the Daleks' creator direct without his say so and, I assume, some money changing hands, which was a shame as Terry enthusiastically threw in several ideas before that - and his unexpected death soon afterward - pretty much kiboshed the project. But I've always felt Doctor Who would - and has - made for some brilliant animation opportunities so it will be interesting to see what the BBC does with this project.

Totally Doctor Who is likely to air on BBC One with repeats on CBBC during the same weeks as new episodes of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who - Phobos airs this weekend

Writer Eddie Robson has just dropped me a line, to plug the first of three episodes he's written in BBC7's Doctor Who radio series, entitled Phobos. If you can get digital radio through a DAB radio, a Freeview box or online at www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/index.shtml (and people all over the world can make use of that last option, not just those in the UK) then you can hear it at 6pm on Sunday 28th January.

If you miss it, it's repeated at midnight or you can listen to it at your leisure any time in the next six days by logging on at www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/sunday (it's got last week's schedule up at the moment, but that should change overnight and be ready for listening on Monday morning).

And then, on the 10th and 17th of February, Eddie's two-part story Human Resources is being broadcast. Same time, same things apply.

Check out Eddie's web site at: www.shinyshelf.com

Steve Jobs Reinvents...

After the latest MacWorld Expo, I began to wonder what else Apple boss Steve Jobs might reinvent, now he's reinventing the mobile phone...

Alan Moore talks new League of Gentlemen project

(with thanks to Matthew Badham): Alan Moore has just been interviewed about his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier project over on World Famous Comics.

"There's an immense amount of stuff in the Dossier," he outlines, revealing the book spans much of the League's centuries-spanning history For example: "A prospectus of London, features upon previous versions of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Les Hommes Mysterieux from France, and Der Zweilicht-helden from Germany. There's an account of The Surrogate League that British Intelligence tried to put together in the 1950s, and which was a complete disaster. There's everything that you could ever want to know about any incarnation of The League. And this is the source book material; this is the actual Black Dossier.

"Imagine a source book that has got lots of interesting snippets from here and there in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's three or four hundred year history," he says. "But, these are presented in some unusual ways. For example, when we want to talk about the founding of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which involved Prospero, then we include a lost Shakespeare folio for a play called Fairy's Fortunes Founded, which Shakespeare commenced to write in 1616, which was the year of his death, and thus never completed. So we have got the opening scenes of Fairy's Fortunes Founded reproduced in the manner of a Shakespeare folio as part of The Black Dossier, fully illustrated and featuring some pretty good Shakespeare, if I say so myself."

In Memoriam: Joe Gill

(Thanks to Shaqui): Joe Gill is probably not a name most of British comics fans will be familiar with, but Joe Gill was one of the most prolific US comic writers, mainly for Charlton, and contributed strips to their Space:1999 magazine in the 1970s, as recounted on the Technodelic Gerry Anderson web site

A full obituary by Mark Evanier can be read here

Computer Woes

My laptop keeled over and died last Thursday, its logic board giving up the ghost. Although fixed thanks to some amazingly speedy service from Apple I now have to reinstall everything so if you're looking for UK comics news from me over the next few days, best to check here first rather than the main site.

Also, if anyone has been trying to contact me by email you'll now know why I haven't replied...