Talk:Tales from the TARDIS (comic series)

Huh

I notice that despite the Doctor's clear in-universe framing narratives, which make these stories (and Dr Who's Time Tales) self-evidently valid, none of us have ever gotten around to making pages for The War of the Worlds (comic story), The Invisible Man (comic story), et al. I don't believe I'm missing anything obvious precluding the validity of these stories, so I intend to proceed with the story pages, H.G. Wells author page, 1866 (people), and so on – albeit likely not at a particularly speedy pace, so feel free to help out, dear reader, if you're interested. – n8 (☎) 15:25, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Not so fast!

There was a thread very on in the Wiki's history which had resolved not to cover these. Accordingly they are listed at Tardis:Valid_sources#When the licensor is the BBC as things we don't really cover as more than overviews.

That being said — unless memory fails (curse the out-of-reach-ness of the Matrix Archives), this decision was based on the mistaken impression that these were just reprints of preexisting stories with a single panel of the Fourth Doctor "introducing" the story added at the start. In actuality, not only was there often more than one new panel, but the nature of the new material and of the stories was such that the narrative voice of the caption-boxes throughout the comic was now construed as the Doctor's. Hence, this is much more like The Incomplete Death's Head than like, say, an "in-character" TV announcement for an unrelated show: the entire narrative content of the story involves the Doctor, albeit as an observer rather than player.

We also have the validity of The Dalek Tapes as a precedent for us acknowledging that if a comic story's narrator's identity is switched, and new art is added (albeit little of it), then we should consider the result a new product in its own right. Of course, the source material of Dalek Tapes was already DWU in its own right, but the point is that the "new version" is to be treated as a new production in its own right — and in the case of the Tales from the TARDIS, that new production is inherently a story we should cover, what with having the Doctor in it.

There is even the validity of the non-Dalek material in The Dalek Outer Space Book to keep in mind: there, it was decided that the framing of these stories as "documents of interest to the Daleks" placed them within the scope of the legal DWU, and therefore, what we cover.

Thus, I actually think it would be more in-line with modern policy to cover these than not. All the precedents I have cited should, to my mind, bz enough to write off the earlier decision as an artefact of out-of-date policy, which should by all rights be corrected, and does not really need a Forum thread to do so. (If we had a Forum we should probably grant it a thread; but in the absence of one, I think it's not pushing the envelope to substitute a talk page discussion.)

Nevertheless, let's not rush into this. @NateBumber, please don't start to create pages based on these stories until we've had a few more people chime in here, and actually built up a consensus. (You can start to create them as sandboxes, if you like.) Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 15:56, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm in support of this. If they are just reprints then they shouldn't be valid. If there is actual new content as stated here, they should definitely be covered. Bongo50 (aka Bongolium500) ☎ 16:07, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, as far as I remember these were barred from coverage largely based upon misapprehensions. As Scrooge states, the Doctor has a greater presence in the stories than what was believed. In War of the Worlds, for example, he is said to have met and talked with the protagonist George. We should be covering these sorts of connections properly with valid pages rather than acting as if they don't exist. Borisashton ☎ 16:39, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for chiming in so quickly, gang! Scrooge, that's more than fair enough, and I particularly appreciate your summary of the conflicting state of precedent on this issue; it's certainly odd that, of the numerous "When the licensor is the BBC" cases listed on T:VS, these "Tales" stories are unique in being denied individual coverage even as invalid. Given the new precedent and previously-unrecognized extent of new material, I'm certainly in favor of validity, and I look forward to hearing what other users think (cheers Bongo and Boris). In any case, I'll certainly be making more use of T:VS as a stand-in index of old forum threads for those of us with imperfect memories! – n8 (☎) 16:45, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I definitely think that these should be valid. Besides, I've been meaning to clean up Martian invasion of Earth for a while now, as the info from PROSE: Enter Wildthyme is technically in an alternate universe (though later stories retcon this).

Epsilon📯 📂

18:16, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Okay, great points made by everyone above. Checking the issues the stories were reprinted, I've noticed that the intro for "First Men in the Moon" specifically says the story we're about to read was taken form the TARDIS' video tape library, and the one for "The Invisible Man" remarks the Doctor's met several "mysterious and terrifying things" through his travels and that the Invisible Man is another one of these.

Furthermore, intros made by the Doctor in this exact style are also used in original stories printed on the magazine which are clearly intended to be DWU, like The Stolen TARDIS. So, with this in mind, it's safe to say these four reprints we're made in a way to repurpose the stories as something the Doctor interacted with/experienced in some form or shape. They can be fully covered alongside The Stolen TARDIS, Abslom Daak... Dalek Killer (comic story) and the likes of it.

Additional note: what this ruling is not saying, obviously, is that the original material (be it the Marvel Classics Comics versions, the H. G. Wells novels or any adaptations thereof are to be made valid), merely the four DWM reprints. OncomingStorm12th ☎ 18:17, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Additional note #2: there are thirteen stories under the banner of Dr Who's Time Tales which are identical in all shape, form and intents as the stories ruled above (down to the intros being contextualised as tales the Doctor lived through/learned about in his travels. So, valid as well) OncomingStorm12th ☎ 18:30, 15 July 2021 (UTC)