The Daleks, later reprinted as The Dalek Tapes and collected as The Dalek Chronicles, was a series of 104 single-page comic stories published in the TV Century 21 magazine between 1965 and 1967. The stories detailed the history of the Daleks from their creation to their discovery of Earth.
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The Daleksfor other, similarly-named pages.
Storyline
The strip portrayed a unique narrative of the creation of the Daleks. The original humanoid Daleks were diminutive blue men with large heads. For their war against the Thals, these humanoid Daleks had created not just war machines but also neutron bombs that were accidentally detonated by a meteorite fall. The subsequent explosion created mutant Daleks who used the war machines as their shells. This account conflicted with the story recounted in The Daleks and was later contradicted by Genesis of the Daleks.
Later stories told of the expansion of the Dalek Empire and a lengthy war against the Mechanoids and other enemies (tying into The Chase). In most of these, the Emperor Dalek served as the protagonist.
The final story, The Road to Conflict, concerned the Daleks' first encounters with humans and their discovery of the planet Earth. This was intended to lead into Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D..[1] However, this was retconned in the followup story Return of the Elders, written and released thirty years later in Doctor Who Magazine issues 249-254. Another DWM followup, Deadline to Doomsday, was planned but ultimately unproduced by DWM, though a completed version was later published in the fanzine Vworp Vworp!.
Although much of the material in these strips directly contradicted what was shown on television later, some concepts — such as flying Daleks, Daleks acquiring human characteristics and turning against their masters, and the design of the Dalek Emperor — did show up later on in the programme.
Stories by TV Century 21 issue
Originally, no individual titles were given to the stories. However, some titles were given in the preceding issue's "coming next time" closing caption. After doing research and interviewing those involved in the original strips, John Ainsworth proposed the following titles, which were later used by Doctor Who Magazine in their reprints:
Crew
Though the strips featured the credit "by Terry Nation", writer David Whitaker also contributed. The editor of TV Century 21 said that he had a heavy hand in the writing of the Genesis of Evil story, although this is unlikely.
At different times, Richard Jennings, Eric Eden, and Ron Turner did the art duties.
Reprints
World Distributors first reprinted the comics in 1976 and 1977.
They were again reprinted in Doctor Who Magazine, issues 33 to 42, under the new title The Dalek Tapes.
In 1994 the original, unedited stories were collected and published by Marvel Comics as a graphic novel called The Dalek Chronicles.
In 2020 Panini digitally restored the strips, most from the original art boards, and reprinted them as a graphic novel in bookazine format called The Daleks.
Title graphics
The title image occupied the first panel on the page for the first 75 issues. From issue 76 onward the title ran along the length of the page above the comic.
TV21 Issues 1-6
Art by Richard Jennings
TV21 Issues 7-51
Art by Richard Jennings
TV21 Issues 52-75
Art by Eric Eden
The first set of reprints from World Distributors in the years 1976 and 1977 only used a series title graphic on the first page. On subsequent pages, as with most reprints of the series, both the title and the news box were replaced with narration. Where divided into parts, only the first part's title box carried the series title The Daleks. The Amazing World of Doctor Who's title box (not shown) for a reprint of Eve of War read The Daleks in A New Start.
From 1980 to 1994, Marvel UK reprinted the series. The first block of reprints went uninterrupted from Doctor Who Magazine issues 30-42 and used the title The Dalek Tapes. Those included the standard elements of the tape graphic and the series title, with variation in sizing, placement, and the presence of the other elements. Tape number didn't always receive a special font, and the episode title was originally placed in the news box. When the series was revisited, it carried the second TV21 title graphic on every page of Eve of War. The image was resized to fill the news box as well, avoiding the need to supply any new narration. The Archives of Phryne only carried the graphic on the first page in the issue because it had been originally reprinted in a Dalek Annual. The third set reproduced the 1978 Dalek Annual's reprints of the Skardal arc in original colour and featured the same whimsical lettering in the title box.
Later reprints focused on better quality reproduction of the material. The Dalek Chronicles and The Daleks feature the comics with original TV21 title and news panels intact.
