Comics

The Comic Strip Archive

Every one of the 70 standard issues of Doctor Who: Battles in Time contained a four-page Doctor Who comic strip. Unlike the magazine's episode guides and game material, these strips presented original adventures for the Tenth Doctor and were written specifically for the magazine. The stories were generally designed to fit within the four-page format, although a number of them formed multi-part stories or longer connected story arcs.

The opening six issues formed a continuous six-part adventure featuring the Tenth Doctor and Rose. The first story, Growing Terror, began in Issue 1, with the storyline continuing through Hyperstar Rising, Death Race Five Billion, The Macrobe Menace, The Hunt of Doom and Reunion of Fear. This established the comic strip as an ongoing narrative rather than simply a series of adaptations of television stories.

From Issue 7, Lee Sullivan became the regular artist for the strip. His first story was The Glutonoid Menace, a four-page adventure written by Jason Loborik. Sullivan also provided the colouring for this particular story before Alan Craddock took over as the regular colourist from the following issue.

Sullivan subsequently drew and inked the Battles in Time strips throughout the remainder of the magazine's run. His work became the consistent visual style of the series, while Alan Craddock provided the colouring for the strips after Issue 7. The artwork was produced specifically for the magazine and was designed to represent the Tenth Doctor and his companions in a style recognisable from the television series.

The stories featured Rose Tyler, Martha Jones and Donna Noble at different points in the run, although the Doctor also travelled alone for substantial portions of the series. The strips were not restricted to recreating television episodes and instead introduced original characters, locations and situations. This allowed the magazine to use the trading-card characters and concepts as part of entirely new adventures.

The comic also occasionally provided an early appearance for television characters in comic form. Issue 43's Any Old Iron, for example, was the first Battles in Time comic to feature Donna Noble. It was written by Kieran Grant, drawn by Lee Sullivan and coloured by Alan Craddock.

The four-page format placed considerable limitations on the stories. Some adventures were complete within a single issue, while others were divided into two, four or more instalments. Later examples include School of the Dead, which formed part of a four-part storyline, and The Day the Earth Was Sold, which was published as the first part of a two-part story in Issue 65.

The comic strips therefore developed their own continuity alongside the television programme. Although they were produced primarily to accompany the Battles in Time magazine and trading-card game, the stories contain original adventures that are distinct from the televised episodes.

The "What If?" Illustrated Trading Cards

The comic artwork was also connected to the early development of the Battles in Time trading cards. During the pre-production stage, GE Fabbri considered using illustrated artwork rather than photographic images for the cards.

Lee Sullivan produced sample illustrations demonstrating how Doctor Who characters could be represented within the proposed trading-card format. These included artwork of the Tenth Doctor and Rose and provide an indication of how the finished card range might have looked had the illustrated approach been adopted. Contemporary accounts of the project confirm that Fabbri ultimately selected photographic imagery for the published cards instead.

These illustrations were therefore development artwork rather than an alternative commercially released card set. They provide a rare record of an earlier stage in the design of Battles in Time and demonstrate that the visual identity of the card game had not yet been finalised when the project was being developed.

The original promotional illustrations are reproduced here as part of the site's production-artwork archive. The accompanying reconstructed card design is a modern interpretation of how the illustrated artwork could have appeared within a completed Battles in Time card layout and is not an original GE Fabbri production card.