Talk:Doctor Who (IDW)

Name of article disputed

This title's name is confusing, in light of the presence of Doctor Who (USA). One alternative is to distinguish between the two American titles called Doctor Who by appending their first year of publication, as is standard practice in comics cataloguing. Hence, the name of this article would become Doctor Who (2008). Please click here to add your comments to the discussion. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 06:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

• I agree that since there's now an original comic book series out through IDW (unlike the earlier release which were all reprints) if anything it would make more sense to call this article Doctor Who (USA). I think the best idea is to rename the other article Doctor Who (Marvel Comics) - or Marvel US - and keep this as Doctor Who (IDW). Use the publisher name rather than the year of release as someone searching for this info is more likely to know the publisher. 23skidoo 23:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Just to add to the above, IDW has just released a graphic novel compilation of the first 6 issues which give it the title Agent Provocateur. Therefore by rights this article should probably be renamed Doctor Who: Agent Provocateur with "Doctor Who (IDW)" becoming perhaps an overview article, as IDW seems to be intending to publish different mini-series (The Forgotten being the one starting next month) in lieu of an ongoing title. 23skidoo 04:29, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I think and overview article would be wise and articles for the mini series's Dark Lord Xander 04:48, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I still think it would follow common comics cataloguing conventions (wow, how's THAT for alliteration?) to call this title Doctor Who (2008). I see 23skidoo's 9 June point, above, that you could leave it as is and change Doctor Who (USA) to Doctor Who (Marvel). The problem with that solution, though, is that it creates another problem when it comes to the abbreviations. Doctor Who (Marvel) would logically become DWM, and that obviously won't fly. I can't think of a better way to handle the abbreviations except to include the year. DWUS would thus become DW84 and this one would become DW08.

Although I would be in support of 23skidoo's 9 June comment, were it not for the abbreviation question, I completely disagree with his 26 July one. It would create unnecessary work to turn this article into the one for the story, "Agent Provacateur". It's already been linked into articles which generally discuss the title, not the story. So you'd have to go back and hand-edit those links to point to a different article.

More importantly, though, it's a fundamental misconception to believe that Doctor Who (2008) is anything less than an ongoing title. Most ongoing comic titles these days publish in trade-friendly 4-8 issue story arcs. Detective Comics may have been the source for the trade paperback Batman: Detective, but the name of the ongoing series is still Detective Comics. Same thing here. The Forgotten trade paperback, when published, will merely collect issues 7-12 of the ongoing series known properly as Doctor Who. IDW is not publishing a series of mini-series here. They're just publishing Doctor Who so that you can enjoy it in both monthly and trade paperback forms. And we really don't know a hell of a lot about what, if anything, comes after' The Forgotten. If financially successful, Doctor Who could become a title like Star Wars/Star Wars Republic. That series was predominantly multi-issue arcs, but it did have occasional one-off issues. Create a standard story page for The Forgotten and Agent Provacateur, but leave this article as the one for the Doctor Who title. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 11:06, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed Its more likely to be a series made up of miniseries but i prefer Doctor Who (IDW) as aposed to 2008 because by the looks of things its going to run longer than a year and IDW describes it better then again maybe (IDW Series) would be better Dark Lord Xander 13:11, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I hate to keep harping on this, but It's not a series of miniseries. It's just a regular comic series with completely normal story arcs. It's not "more likely" to be one thing or another. The future tense and speculation isn't really needed here. It already is something. And that something is a completely normal, bog-standard US ongoing title. Seriously, virtually every US title is today told in this format. A mini-series is definitionally something that's meant to run no more than 6-8 issues, and is copyrighted under its story name, such as Infinite Crisis or Civil War. Even if Doctor Who gets cancelled after The Forgotten, which is a definite possibility, it will still have been an ongoing series.

Now, I understand the drive to keep this thing with its current name. Were it not for the prefixes/abbreviations, I might possibly agree with that. But if you switch the 1984 title to a matching Doctor Who (Marvel), what then becomes its prefix? For brevity, it seems to me, DW08 and DW84 work better than anything else I can think of. DWM is taken, DWMUS is long and open to misinterpetation. DW84 is precise and short. CzechOut ☎ | ✍ 00:22, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

As a reader, just "Marvel" as the abbreviation would work for me. --Andrew Nagy 03:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)