Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer, returns...

Well, all right, that headline is a little misleading. I'm not talking about new stories (although there have been some, find out more below...). Rather, the release of Doctor Who: Nemesis of the Daleks, a Seventh Doctor comic collection from Panini Books.

Although I plugged this project on social media on release, I've just realized I inadvertently failed to mention this compendium here, which leads with the cracking Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer story 'Nemesis of the Daleks', penned by Richard Starkings and John Tomlinson (writing as Richard Alan), drawn by Lee Sullivan.

There's a host of other goodies, including the first professional comic strips I edited for Doctor Who Magazine and Paul Cornell's first-ever professional comics commission, drawn by Gerry Dolan – along with Steve Moore, Steve Dillon and David Lloyd's original Daak tales.

This book is crammed with Seventh Doctor comic stories, including the never-before-collected, oft-maligned but fun Incredible Hulk Presents strips whose creators include myself, Dan Abnett, John Ridgway, Simon Furman, Andrew Wildman, John Tomlinson and many more.

Doctor Who: Nemesis of the Daleks is the fifteenth volume in the ongoing series of Doctor Who Graphic Novels published by Panini Books, collections of comic strips that originally appeared in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine and other related titles.

Nemesis of the Daleks, named after the book’s opening strip, is the second volume of Seventh Doctor comic strips (picking up where the previous A Cold Day in Hell!, published in 2009, left off). The stories in this collection originally appeared in 1989 and 1990. At that time the strips not only ran in Doctor Who Magazine but also in a second Marvel Comics UK title, The Incredible Hulk Presents.

In addition to the Seventh Doctor strips, the book includes the popular ‘back up’ strips featuring Abslom Daak from 1980 issues of Doctor Who Weekly and Doctor Who Monthly, to tie-in with the character’s appearance in the 'Nemesis of the Daleks' story.

Panini again commissioned me to provide a detailed commentary on the stories, which includes some fantastic contributions from many of the writers and artists, with reproduced script pages from John Tomlinson and 'Nemesis' design work by Lee Sullivan.

I'm very grateful for the time many took out of busy schedules to answer my questions - asking them to dredge up their memories of strips written almost 20 years ago taxed me, too!

Panini have done a terrific job restoring the strips (Peri Godbold, as ever, the vital cog in this process), and I'm particularly grateful to Steve White for putting me in contact with Incredible Hulk Presents editor Andy Seddon, who I don't think has ever been interviewed about his time at Marvel UK before, and talks extensively about his memories of IHP.

Here is the full list of strips included in the graphic novel. (Titles marked * are reprinted for the first time in this collection.)

I hope you'll go out and buy. Train-Flight by Graham S. Brand & Andrew Donkin, drawn by John Ridgway, included in this volume, is my first work as a comics editor and includes a guest appearance by Sarah Jane Smith (an early example of actress Elizabeth Sladen's support for the Magazine).

While financial circumstances on the title at the time meant we couldn't risk running long form epics like those written by Steve Parkhouse during the Davison era (I would have hated to have started one only for the title to have been cancelled part way through, which was still a possibility, even at this point, because of the show's presumed cancellation), Train-Flight also marks the start of a loose 'arc' that builds to Dan Abnett and Lee Sullivan's brilliant Mark of Mandragora story. An arc that doesn't get in the way of the main storyline at any point, I might add, and utterly confuse its audience...

• Nemesis of the Daleks (Doctor Who Magazine #152-155)
• Stairway to Heaven (Doctor Who Magazine #156) *
• Once in a Lifetime (The Incredible Hulk Presents #1)
• Hunger from the Ends of Time! (The Incredible Hulk Presents #2-3)
• War World! (The Incredible Hulk Presents #4)
• Technical Hitch (The Incredible Hulk Presents #5)
• A Switch in Time! (The Incredible Hulk Presents #6)
• The Sentinel! (The Incredible Hulk Presents #7) *
• Who’s that Girl! (The Incredible Hulk Presents #8-9) *
• The Enlightenment of Ly-Chee the Wise (The Incredible Hulk Presents #10) *
• Slimmer! (The Incredible Hulk Presents #11) *
• Nineveh! (The Incredible Hulk Presents #12) *
• Train-Flight (Doctor Who Magazine #159-161)
• Doctor Conkerer! (Doctor Who Magazine #162)
• Abslom Daak: Dalek Killer (Doctor Who Weekly #17-20)
• Star Tigers (Doctor Who Weekly #27-30, Doctor Who Monthly #44-46)

Oh, and if after this you are looking for new Abslom Daak stories, then try and track down copies of  Vworp Vworp Magazine penned by Steve Dillon and drawn by Martin Geraghty.

•  Buy Doctor Who: Nemesis of the Daleks from amazon.co.uk

• Buy Doctor Who: Nemesis of the Daleks from forbidden planet.com

• Read an online interview with Steve Moore about Abslom Daak on the Altered Vistas web site

Vworp! Vworp Issue 2 on sale now. Just buy it

The second issue of the amazing Doctor Who fan magazine Vworp Vworp - a fanzine about the long-running and best-seling Doctor Who Magazine - is on sale now.

Quite simply, if you are a fan of Doctor Who and Doctor Who Magazine, you should get out there an buy this, because it's brilliant - and not just because of the freebies that come with it.

Apart from anything else, it includes an all-new comic strip featuring the Dalek killing anti-hro Abslom Daak, created by Steve Moore and Steve Dillon. More to the point, it's written by Steve Moore and drawn by longtime DWM comic artst Martin Geraghty and worth the cover price alone.

Contents also include

• The first half of an exhaustive Abslom Daak tribute, including interviews with writer Steve Moore, and artists Steve Dillon and David Lloyd. 
• A series of DWM editor interviews kicks off with a fascinating chat between founding Dez Skinn and current head honcho Tom Spilsbury. The magazine also chats to Paul Neary, Alan McKenzie, Cefn Ridout and the elusive Sheila Cranna.
• Ex-Doctors Tom Baker and Colin Baker talk about their comic strip selves.
• Dave Gibbons, Steve Parkhouse and Mick McMahon discuss The Tides of Time and Junkyard Demon, and we take in The Lodger with Gareth Roberts and Mike Collins.
• Plus there's more comic strip - The Housekeeper, a story written by Paul Magrs and drawn by Bret M Herholz starring Mrs Wibbesey and the Fourth Doctor.

Vworp Vworp 2 comes with two covers: a wraparound Abslom Daak cover by Mike Collins, and an early Doctor Who Monthly pastiche featuring Junkyard Demon (with Jason Fletcher and Ben Willsher’s take on Daak on the back.

Plus, there's a fantastic free gift in the form of a ‘Vworpabix’ board game. Based on the 1970s Weetabix game, Vworp Vworp's has 16 character cards by Adrian Salmon and boards by Paul Grist, Jon Pinto, Leighton Noyes and Graeme Neil Reid.

A very limited edition magazine, you can order it here from the Vworp Vworp web site.

It's totally brilliant - so get out there an grab one while you can.

Vworpabix board game

New Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer story released

Following the release of Star Tigers Chapter One at the beginning of the year, Doctor Who fan film makers Altered Vistas have just announced the DVD not-for-profit release of Chapter Two: With Friends Like These, based on the classic Doctor Who Magazine comic strips starring Ablsom Daak, Dalek Killer.

This second chapter of Star Tigers - a series for Doctor Who Weekly created by Steve Moore back in the 1980s - sees Abslom Daak and Prince Salander set off across the galaxy in search of a crew for the Killwagon. First is Harma the Ice Warrior, working on the seedy world of Paradise, then Vol Mercurius, owner of the planet Dispater... But Dispater is being invaded by the Daleks.

The fan production comes with the usual raft of bonus features: a Star Tigers Gallery; dozens of images from the original unlettered strip, reprinted with kind permission from David Lloyd; and the Making of Star Tigers, a comprehensive documentary illustrating the creative process and taking you through script, sound design, character and set design to animation and editing.

Also included is World of the War-King, a story based on an original, unpublished Star Tigers script written by Steve Moore. Back in 1980, Steve wrote a third story in the Abslom Daak/Star Tigers sequence that was never published, and he eventually forgot about the story. Until recently, that is. Upon rediscovering the original script, he sent it to Altered Vistas who have created a new version of the strip in the style of their animated Star Tigers - and you can also read it online here.

An exclusive ‘living comic book’ version of this 1980 comic strip that contains one or two surprises...

• Visit the Altered Vistas website

Doctor Who-inspired Star Tigers returns as animated fan project

Altered Vistas, an amateur production company dedicated to creating Doctor Who-related features from the "fringes" of the franchise, has just released its twenty-first animated CGI release - the first chapter of an all-new Star Tigers adventure, plucked from the pages of Doctor Who Weekly. It's a fan project written and fully supported by original Abslom Daak: Dalek Killer and Star Tigers creator and writer Steve Moore himself.

Set in the 26th century universe first seen on Doctor Who in Frontier in Space on TV back in the 1970s, Star Tigers was a follow up story published in Doctor Who Weekly to the hugely popular Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer.

The new animated story sees the Daleks' second greatest enemy heading into Draconian space in an attempt to find help for Princess Taiyin. There, he is taken under the wing of Prince Salander, noble of the Draconian royal court, but their association leads them both into a web of intrigue, bribery, corruption and jealousy that will inevitably end in tragedy.

Steve Moore has also been interviewed by AV for their web site, and has nothing but praise for the Star Tigers project. "I’ve never seen [animator Stuart Palmer] on better form than he is here," he enthuses in a on-site review. "We all know that everything he does is a labour of love, but this is just downright Herculean... The whole thing looks absolutely stunning, and there are some sequences, like the scene where the Killwagon first takes off and heads for space, or the meeting with Vol Mercurius on Dispater, which are just so perfect they make an old fogey like me quite emotional... and that’s to say nothing of the fantastic sets on Draconia and Paradise, where Stuart has picked up the original designs by Steve Dillon and David Lloyd and extended them into wonderful new areas.

"And for all you fans of dead women (!), Taiyin just looks fabulous... what a babe!"

Steve is, perhaps understandably given the passage of time and the sheer volume of material he wrote for various comics back in the 1970s, vague on the origins of Abslom Daak for Doctor Who Weekly. "I’d done a couple of stories about Kroton the Cyberman, and Dez Skinn asked me to come up with a character that would be an independent creation of the magazine, even though it was still set in the Doctor Who universe. Whether it was his idea or mine to include the Daleks, I really can’t remember... it could just have been that it was their 'turn', after we’d worked through some of the other alien races, and so they got included."

Even today, Moore sites Abslom Daak: Dalek Killer and Star Tigers as some of his favourite creations. "I’d been writing for seven or eight years," he reveals, "and, although I’d come up with characters like Kroton the Cyberman, who was still first and foremost a Cyberman, this was the first time since I’d got some experience behind me that someone actually asked me to create my own character. So in many ways it was a breakthrough strip for me.

"It was also very personal. At the time I was deeply depressed over a broken romance, and a lot of that angst went into the first Daak story... it wasn’t just Daak who was feeling suicidal and betrayed. And as I was still carrying around a lot of grief about the lady in question by the time I began writing Star Tigers, so Daak carried the dead Taiyin round with him too, in hope of reviving their love."

Talking about his attitude to "readership ages" - often a bugbear with modern British comic fans bemoaning the patronising format of some modern comic strip story telling in news stand publications, Moore reveals he never used to think about the readership at all, let alone their age when he wrote his many stories for various comics in the 1970s.

"You know, when you’re up against deadlines, all you think is: ‘Come up with a story that works… and before you go to bed this evening.’", he says, answering questions about the Doctor Who strip "K9's Finest Hour". "Naturally I knew I couldn’t handle adult themes like sex or excess violence, but apart from that all my attention was on the story and just getting it done.

"Looking back, I doubt that K9 would have been my first choice of character, so it may have been suggested to me by Dez that we should do a story about him. And once you’ve decided to do a solo story about a robot dog, it pretty much asks for a more humorous treatment. That may be what made the story different from the others, rather than any intention to write for a younger audience."

Also included in the interview is a synopsis for a ten issue mini-series of an Abslom Daak story, After Dark, written by Steve which would have concluded Daak’s story as Steve wanted to tell it.

First discussed at a time when Dan Abnett was heading up new project development at Marvel UK, Moore describes it as "the most complex plot I’d ever come up with, and the outline was written in minute detail."

Unfortunately, Moore notes, the idea was savaged by another Marvel UK editor, John Freeman...

"[He] asked me to cut the story down from ten issues to four, which was absurd, and to concentrate on 'what Daak does best'.. in other words, he wanted a thug with a chainsaw. I wasn’t prepared to chop After Daak about like that, so I made a compromise offer that we’d put that story to one side and I’d write another outline for a four-issue series, which would concentrate on Daak’s youth and early exploits with Mercurius and Selene, for which I jotted down a couple of paragraphs. If that went well, I suggested, we might do After Daak afterwards. But nothing ever came of that idea either, and everything just sort of fizzled out."

John's recollection of events is that both Dan and discussed several ideas for limited series Marvel UK projects. "We shared the same office space at the time," he recalls. "The word came down from Marvel US - probably from either Tom de Falco or Carol Kalish - that ten issue mini series were no longer favoured for costs reasons, and Marvel was seeking to publish four-issue mini series instead to try out new characters. (Proposed projects included a Death's Head revival and a try out for Rourke, a character created by Freeman and Liam Sharp for the Strip comic magazine). The emphasis for these projects also had to be very much on the action, rather than what might have been described as the cereberal."

"Four issues were the minimum Marvel could publish - there was some legal or distribution restriction in the US on publishing three-part mini series, which the company would have preferred."

In the end, neither Steve's ten-part or four-part proposal was ever taken up, although both treatments would almost certainly have been seen by Paul Neary when he took up the reins as Editorial Director at Marvel UK in the 1990s. By that time, Marvel US considered Doctor Who a 'dead' franchise and there was no value to Marvel in seeking to extend a brand they did not themselves own. Instead, Paul developed a range of new characters for the company while also revamping Death's Head, drawn by Liam Sharp.

Daak has, of course, returned to the pages of Doctor Who Magazine several times since his Star Tigers appearance, always to fan enthusiasm.

Unlike other fan groups dedicated to creating additional adventures for the good Doctor, Altered Vistas is dedicated to adapting and bringing to life stories that already exist on the fringes of Who-lore. That covers a broad spectrum of stories, and they're hoping to adapt for the screen as many of them as they can using animated CGI, blended with high quality 2D animation, screen grabs (where appropriate) and high quality stills taken from CGI source, and all assembled against a high quality soundtrack with music, sound effects and the best amateur actors they can get our hands on.

• The second chapter of Star Tigers will be released later in the year. Check out the site www.alteredvistas.co.uk for details of the Star Tigers project and Steve's revealing interview