Flashback: the David Jones comic series

In the first of probably a series of posts, I'll be advertising alerting people to a few choice things I've done creatively. And what better to start off with, than this...

Go on! Click it - it's got words and pictures, what more do you want?

To set the scene - I was making Doctor Who comics, with toy action figures, and posting them onto a Doctor Who figures fan site (still going - just!). It's not an original idea, but I rather liked it - writing a script (or in the early days, making it up as you went along), taking the photos, and editing it together on the computer. But by the end of 2008, I realised these were mostly unconnected, seemingly random stories released as and when. What I needed was a series!

 

Sorry, Doctor and River - a Christmas special in the TARDIS isn't gonna be enough...

I came up with something quite unusual - something with Doctor Who characters in, obviously, but there were just enough humans to allow me to make my own ones up. Instead of travels in space and time, now there was a main character who was an alien in disguise (taking on the bland name of David Jones - better than John Smith!), helping the Earth!

 

C'mon, how can you resist a whopping great picture of a Cyberman?

Well, it's complicated - there's monsters, UNIT, betrayal, a former girlfriend, the works. And there's a lot of things I'd do a lot differently if I was given the chance now - but, as a series of comics, I think they stand up pretty well indeed. An adventure in the Antarctic with Cybermen! Weevils from Torchwood in the sewers! Slitheen! The Doctor popping up! Yes, I had fun doing it. (My favourite's probably The Brethren's Curse... or the 'Christmas' special!)
In a way, it's a personal project - I'm predominantly making something that I'd like to see, and it's something I've invested a lot of ideas in myself. (Perhaps it's also because, unlike Youtube, there's no comments section from strangers - although the attached forum's quite enthusiastic - no like button, no easily accessible view count to watch steadily increase...)

Admittedly, the thing that ultimately has killed it off is the scale. I'm aiming high with this - no idea too small, nothing that cannot be realised with a spot of liberal photoshop editing, from customising figures (Evil Patrick Troughton clone Salamander! Alien hybrids! A masterly Vinvocci!) to creating spaceships or enhancing bits of cardboard. Huge stories cluttered my head, typed out as film-scripts, and photographed with glee. The style is less of a comic and more like a storyboard with speech bubbles - but hey. A turnaround of a comic every month shortly became two months, then six months, then about a year...

Still, ten episodes is a good run so far, considering. But it's not cancelled - it's still alive! In fact, I valiantly shot the remaining episodes I'd written, up to end of the 'series' (in my own made-up rules) back last year. But boy, it's a slog to edit a hundred-odd pages.

And so it goes on the back burner. Whilst my head fills up with new ideas, new plots, new characters. It's a sad life, making these. But it's been a lot of fun.