The Dr Who Annual 1969
The Dr Who Annual 1969 was the fourth Doctor Who annual published by World Distributors. It was released in September 1968.
Contents
Text stories
- Lords of the Galaxy
- Follow the Phantoms
- Mastermind of Space
- The Celestial Toyshop
- Valley of Dragons
- Planet from Nowhere
- Happy as Queeg
- World of Ice
- The Microtron Men
- Death to Mufl
Comic strip stories
Features
- Star Facts
- About the Moon
- The Unknown World Under the Sea
- Space Dictionary
- Our Solar System
- Space Panorama
- Men in Space
- Looking Back
- Pioneers of Flight
Puzzles
- Space Quiz
- Return from Hades
- Space Special
- Dr. Who's Planet Quiz
- The Mysteries of Space
Additional notes
- The Doctor is referred to throughout as "Dr Who".
- Walter Howarth's cover of this annual was heavily based on George Wilson's cover for Space Family Robinson: Lost in Space #23 (August 1967).[1]
- The cover illustrations depict the Cybermen, Cyber-Controller and Yeti, but they do not appear inside the annual.
- Natarls from the film Battle in Outer Space (1959) appear in the artwork of the inside cover.
Shades of Ben and Polly?
It seems likely that the first four stories in the annual would have originally featured Polly Wright and Ben Jackson instead of Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield, with a plethora of evidence that their characters were edited out of these stories. As well as Jamie and Victorias' general behaviour and appearance more closely reflecting that of their predecessors, several anachronisms point to Polly and Ben being the companions in the annual as originally conceived.
- In Lords of the Galaxy, Victoria, despite being from the 1860s, worries about having landed in the middle of World War Three.
- In Follow the Phantoms, Victoria suggests that Ziita's people are like film stars, while Jamie is lambasted by the Doctor for using the Earth expression "on the blink".
- In Freedom by Fire, Victoria is referred to as "Polly" while Jamie possesses a pen-knife.
From The Celestial Toyshop onwards, the illustrations more closely resemble Victoria and Jamie, and the distinctive mannerisms of the two characters are apparent.
