Doctor Who returns to screens this weekend in the first of three 60th anniversary specials and it features a character who first appeared in a comic strip in Doctor Who magazine in the 1980s, namely Beep The Meep. Coincidentally, a drawing I did of another character the Doctor has met on his comic-strip travels recently appeared within the pages of
issue XVIII of the
Doctor Who Appreciation Society's free quarterly digital magazine,
Cosmic Masque.
This drawing here.
It accompanies an article on
Draw Death's Head Day ,
Death's Head being the character in question. Originally created by writer
Simon Furman, (whose birthday 'coincides' with DDH Day), and artist
Geoff Senior, the robotic
bounty hunter freelance peacekeeping agent has encountered quite an eclectic mix of characters over the years. Being a
Marvel UK character, there's the obvious array of superheroes, but initially he was a supporting character in the British
Transformers comic, before encountering said
Doctor and other Marvel UK types, (he even once joined in a fracas started by the aforementioned Meep).
I actually had a letter printed in the original run of Death's Head own comic back in 1989, coincidentally, (again), in an issue which co-starred the seventh Doctor...
There's the letter there...
That building looks familiar.
That toad-like character on the cover, (and the main protagonist in the story), is
Josiah W. Dogbolter, who coincidentally, (again), also seems to be making a reappearance in Doctor Who media soon, if that is indeed him on the cover of this new audio drama coming from
Big Finish Productions next month, (he
has appeared in other Big Finish stories previously)...
Coincidentally, (this is just getting silly now), Phil Boyce has recently started doing a retrospective of the Death's Head comics over on his
Oink! blog.
Click
HERE to read the Death's Head entries.
Issue XVIII of Cosmic Masque is available to download
HERE, along with the subsequent issue XIX and all previous issues.
