DWM comic stories

Comic stories have appeared in all but two issues of Doctor Who Magazine. Since its earliest days as Doctor Who Weekly, the publication has been home to many types of strips, but the most durable has been the one featuring the then-current televised Doctor. This "main strip" has usually been told in a multi-part format. Beyond these continuing adventures of the Doctor, the magazine has at different times printed comic adaptations of classic science fiction stories, reprints of original science-fiction stories from American comic book anthologies, reprints of strips originally printed in Polystyle or City Magazines publications, and original strips not featuring the Doctor which were nevertheless set in the Whoniverse.

Overview

In 1979, Marvel UK wrested control of the license to produce Doctor Who comics from Polystyle. Editor Dez Skinn immediately changed the style of the comic strip by hiring youngsters who were principally comic book artists, rather than the cartoonists and illustrators who had been in charge of Polystyle's output. With soon-to-be-luminaries like Dave Gibbons, Pat Mills and John Wagner working on the main strip and Alan Moore, Steve Moore, Steve Dillon and Steve Parkhouse initially handling the back-ups, Skinn instantly brought modern — and more American — sensibilities to the comic Doctor Who world.

At the same time, those early issues of Doctor Who Weekly brought American comic strips in front of British eyes by having a long series of reprints taken straight from Marvel's long line of American science fiction anthologies. Called variously "Tales from the TARDIS" and "Time Tales", the non-Whoniverse backup strips of those early issues involved a few panels of the Fourth Doctor framing a Marvel US adaptation of a classic science fiction story or an original strip taken from a Marvel US science fiction anthology of the 1950s or 1960s. Borrowed as they were from Marvel US, they featured the talents of Marvel legends Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Chris Claremont, and even Stan Lee himself. Skinn also resurrected the long-out-of-print Dalek Tapes stories that had originally appeared in TV Century 21. For a time, Doctor Who Weekly regularly had three or four different strips in each issue.

Skinn's successors rather quickly ended the non-Whoniverse material, and made reprints of 1960s material increasingly sporadic. But the non-Doctor original back-ups remained well past the time the magazine became Doctor Who Monthly. These backups, however, dried up at about the time the Sixth Doctor debuted. By the end of the 1980s, the magazine generally ran only the main Doctor Who strip. However, there were rare instances when a Polystyle comic made its way into print during the 1990s. These occasional reprints ended entirely by the dawn of the 21st century. In the 1990s DWM temporarily ran a series of comic strips featuring past Doctors in lieu of the then-current Seventh Doctor, but from 1996 it once again featured exclusively the current Doctor.

Today, Doctor Who Magazine exclusively publishes a single original comic strip per issue. As has been the case since 1979, most stories are serialised and told over the course of several issues, with the occasional single-chapter standalone. Originally published in black and white, the comic strip has been published in colour since the early 2000s.

Reprints

Many of the comic strips have been reprinted a number of times in, or as, various publications, including as a series of mini-comics given away free in multi-packs of crisp snacks.

Doctor Who Magazine material was first reprinted in America via the Marvel Premiere anthology series in the early 1980s. When sales proved favourable, a new title, Doctor Who (1984), was launched. Though cancelled just shy of its two-year anniversary, the title managed to reprint almost all of the Fourth and Fifth Doctors' DWM runs. It also offered some prominent American artists, such as Dave Cockrum and George Roussos, an opportunity to offer pinup and cover artwork of Doctor Who subjects. Like many DWM reprints, Doctor Who (1984) presented its reprints in colour. Towards the end of 2007, IDW Publishing picked up the option to again reprint colourised versions of DWM comic strips in a monthly American series entitled Doctor Who Classics, reprinting stories up to the early Seventh Doctor era, plus a two-volume standalone, Grant Morrison's Doctor Who, reprinting Morrison's output from DWM. IDW also published several omnibus trade paperbacks featuring DWM strip reprints. The reprints ended with IDW's loss of their license to publish Doctor Who comics.

In the UK, Panini undertook a long project to digitally restore all Doctor Who Magazine comics, and faithfully reprint the comics from their original masters. In most cases, this has meant the first monochromatic reprinting of most DWM strips. It has also offered the creative teams an opportunity to add explanatory notes and original concept artwork. These large-format volumes have to date covered most of the history of DWM from 1979 onwards.

Doctor Who Magazine's comic strips have also been a key feature of hardback publications like the series of Doctor Who Yearbooks, Doctor Who annuals and Doctor Who Storybooks, as well as numerous special, seasonal issues of DWM itself.

Main strips by issue

DWM	Title	Doctor	Featuring	Collected In
1-8	The Iron Legion	4th
9-16	City of the Damned	4th
17-18	Timeslip	1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th	K9
19-26	The Star Beast	4th	K9
27-34	The Dogs of Doom	4th	K9, Sharon, Daleks
35-38	The Time Witch	4th	K9, Sharon
39-45	Dragon's Claw	4th	K9, Sharon, Sontaran
46	The Collector	4th	K9, Sharon
47-48	Dreamers of Death	4th	K9, Sharon
49-50	The Life Bringer	4th	K9
51	War of the Words	4th	K9
52	Spider-God	4th
53	The Deal	4th
54-55	End of the Line	4th
56-57	The Free-Fall Warriors	4th	Ivan
58-59	Junkyard Demon	4th	Cybermen
60	The Neutron Knights	4th
61-67	The Tides of Time	5th	Sir Justin, Shayde
68-69	Stars Fell on Stockbridge	5th	Maxwell
70-75	The Stockbridge Horror	5th
76-77	Lunar Lagoon	5th	Angus
78-83	4-Dimensional Vistas	5th	Angus, The Monk
84,86-87	The Moderator	5th	Angus
88-89	The Shape Shifter	6th	Frobisher
90-94	Voyager	6th	Frobisher
95-97	Polly the Glot	6th	Frobisher
98-99	Once Upon a Time Lord	6th	Frobisher
100-101	War-Game	6th	Frobisher
102-103	Funhouse	6th	Frobisher
104	Kane's Story	6th	Peri, Frobisher
105	Abel's Story	6th	Peri, Frobisher
106	The Warrior's Story	6th	Peri, Frobisher
107	Frobisher's Story	6th	Peri, Frobisher
108	Exodus	6th	Peri, Frobisher
109	Revelation!	6th	Peri, Frobisher, Cybermen
110	Genesis!	6th	Peri, Frobisher, Cybermen
111-113	Nature of the Beast!	6th	Peri, Frobisher
114-116	Time Bomb	6th	Frobisher
117	Salad Daze	6th	Peri, Frobisher
118-119	Changes	6th	Peri, Frobisher
120-122	Profits of Doom!	6th	Peri, Frobisher
123-126	The Gift	6th	Peri, Frobisher
127-129	The World Shapers	6th	Peri, Frobisher, Jamie
130-133	A Cold Day in Hell!	7th	Frobisher, Ice Warriors
134	Redemption!	7th	Olla
135	The Crossroads of Time	7th
136-138	Claws of the Klathi!	7th
139	Culture Shock!	7th
140	Keepsake	7th
141-142	Planet of the Dead	7th
143-144	Echoes of the Mogor!	7th
145-146	Time and Tide	7th
147	Follow That TARDIS!	7th	The Monk
148-150	Invaders from Gantac!	7th
152-155	Nemesis of the Daleks	7th	Abslom Daak, Daleks
156	Stairway to Heaven	7th
157-158	Hunger from the Ends of Time! (The Incredible Hulk Presents reprint)	7th
159-161	Train-Flight	7th	Sarah Jane
162	Doctor Conkerer!	7th
164-166	Fellow Travellers	7th	Ace
167	Darkness, Falling	-	The Brigadier
168	Distractions	7th	Ace
169-172	The Mark of Mandragora	7th	Ace, The Brigadier
173	Party Animals	7th	Ace
174	The Chameleon Factor	7th	Ace
175-178	The Good Soldier	7th	Ace, Cybermen
179	A Glitch in Time	7th	Ace
180	Evening's Empire (Part One only)	7th	Ace
181	The Fires Down Below (backup strip reprint)	-	Whitaker
182	Spider-God (reprint)	4th
183	Conflict of Interests	-	Sontarans
184	Business as Usual (backup strip reprint)	-	Nestene Consciousness, Autons
185-187	The Grief	7th	Ace
188-190	Ravens	7th
191	Memorial	7th	Ace
192	Cat Litter	7th	Ace
193-196	Pureblood	7th	Benny, Sontarans, Rutan
197-202	Emperor of the Daleks!	6th, 7th	Benny, Peri, Abslom Daak, Daleks
203-206	Final Genesis	7th	Ace, Benny
207	Time & Time Again	1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th	Susan, Jamie, Zoe, Adric, Frobisher, Ace, Benny
208-210	Cuckoo
211	Uninvited Guest
212-214	Victims
215-217	The Lunar Strangers
218-220	Food for Thought
221-223	Change of Mind
224-226	Land of the Blind
227	Up Above the Gods
228-230	The Curse of the Scarab
231-233	Operation Proteus
234	Target Practice
235-237	Black Destiny
238-242	Ground Zero
243	Doctor Who and the Fangs of Time
244-247	Endgame
248-249	The Keep
250	A Life of Matter and Death
251-255	Fire and Brimstone
256	By Hook or By Crook
257-260	Tooth and Claw
262-265	The Final Chapter
266-271	Wormwood
272	Happy Deathday
273-276	The Fallen
277	Unnatural Born Killers
278-282	The Road to Hell
283	TV Action!
284-286	The Company of Thieves
287-296	The Glorious Dead
297-299	The Autonomy Bug
300-303	Ophidius
304	Beautiful Freak
305	The Last Word
306,308-310	The Way of All Flesh
307	Flower Power (TV Comic reprint)
311	Character Assassin	-
312-317	Children of the Revolution
318	Me and My Shadow	-
319-322	Uroboros
323-328	Oblivion
329	Where Nobody Knows Your Name
330-332	The Nightmare Game
333	The Power of Thoueris!
334-336	The Curious Tale of Spring-Heeled Jack
337	The Land of Happy Endings
338-342	Bad Blood
343-345	Sins of the Fathers
346-353	The Flood
355-357	The Love Invasion
358	Art Attack
359-362	The Cruel Sea
363-364	A Groatsworth of Wit
365-367	The Betrothal of Sontar
368	The Lodger
369-371	F.A.Q.
372-374	The Futurists
375-376	Interstellar Overdrive
377	The Green-Eyed Monster
378-380	The Warkeeper's Crown
381-384	The Woman Who Sold the World
385	Bus Stop
386-389	The First
390	Death to the Doctor!
391-393	Universal Monsters
394	Hotel Historia
395-398	The Widow's Curse
399	The Time of My Life
400-402	Thinktwice
403-405	The Stockbridge Child
406-407	Mortal Beloved
408-411	The Age of Ice
412	The Deep Hereafter
413	Onomatopoeia
414-415	Ghosts of the Northern Line
416-420	The Crimson Hand
421-423	Supernature
424	Planet Bollywood
425-428	The Golden Ones
429	The Professor, the Queen and the Bookshop
430-431	The Screams of Death
432	Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
433-434	Forever Dreaming
435-437	Apotheosis
438-441	The Child of Time
442-445	The Chains of Olympus
446-447	Sticks & Stones
448-450	The Cornucopia Caper
451-454	The Broken Man
455	Imaginary Enemies	-
456-461	Hunters of the Burning Stone
462-464	A Wing and a Prayer
465-466	Welcome to Tickle Town
467	John Smith and the Common Men
468-469	Pay the Piper
470-474	The Blood of Azrael
475-476	The Crystal Throne	-
477-480	The Eye of Torment
481-483	The Instruments of War
484	Space Invaders!
485-488	Blood and Ice
487-491	Spirits of the Jungle
492-493	The Highgate Horror
494-495	The Dragon Lord
496	Theatre of the Mind
497-499	Witch Hunt
500	The Stockbridge Showdown
501-	The Pestilent Heart