I'm pleased to report that my internet appears to be back up and running. Before I get back into the swing of the regular run of blog posts I thought I'd run this piece - prompted by the most recent issue of DWM. This edition has a Target Books emphasis, and I was most taken with the free poster. On one side are all the original covers for all the books, whilst the reverse has the same books but with later reprint covers. Naturally I've gone for the first side to grace my wall, with all the classic Chris Achilleos covers from the 1970's.
I've been looking at it a lot over the last few days, as well as dipping into my "The Target Book", and have identified some firm favourites - and some that I don't think are anywhere near as impressive, for one reason or another. In story order, these are my ten least favourite first edition covers. (I could have filled this piece with the first batch of reprints, which are uniformly bad, but decided to stick with just the first editions). By all means, do let me know if you disagree. You might love some of these, or have others you hate more.
No.1: Doctor Who And An Unearthly Child.
Yes - a Police Box, standing in a junkyard, is where it all began. However, this just isn't representative of the story as a whole. The junkyard scene takes up only part of the first half of the first episode. The sequences on screen were set at night, and look atmospheric, yet this image shows the TARDIS in broad daylight. I just find it rather dull - and I always hate banners across the image.
No.2: Doctor Who And The Keys Of Marinus.
This is another deadly dull image, which has nothing to do with the story itself. The TARDIS is never seen in space. Some later novelisations which were full of characters and locations elected to represent several of them on their covers - e.g. The Chase or Mission to the Unknown (The Daleks' Masterplan Vol 1). This is a globe trotting adventure, with lots of creatures and characters - Voord, Morpho, Ice Soldiers etc. - yet none of this appears. It's just a generic Doctor Who book cover.
No.3: Doctor Who - The Aztecs.
The artist here just hasn't bothered looking at any of the photographic publicity material from this story. If the last cover was a generic Doctor Who one, then this is a generic Aztecs one. Presumably the fierce looking gentleman with the dagger is meant to be Tlotoxl, but looks nothing like him. Sticking a TARDIS in the corner just isn't good enough.
No.4: Doctor Who - The Romans.
What lets this one down for me is the representation of the Emperor Nero. Like the previous cover, the artist has ignored the publicity images of Derek Francis. That's it for this one.
No.5: Doctor Who - The Space Museum.
A perfectly good image of William Hartnell, but they stick a couple of generic spaceships beside him, then include a couple of Daleks - suggesting something which this story is not. It isn't a Dalek story. There's an empty casing which the Doctor hides in, and one turns up at the very end as a cliff-hanger into the following story, but I think it's misleading to feature them on this cover.
No.6: Doctor Who - The Mind Robber.
I hate the pink background, but more than that I hate the fact that they've once again ignored images from the story itself. The Gorgon looks nothing like the one which featured in the story (which was actually quite creepy), and the other characters are simply generic versions of things which appeared in the story.
No.7: Doctor Who And The Androids Of Tara.
The problem with this one is the dreadful likenesses of both Tom Baker and Mary Tamm. It's also rather boring. "The Target Book" has a detailed drawing of Tom which was prepared for this cover, which is really very good, but it just didn't translate into the final painted image.
No.8: Doctor Who And The Destiny Of The Daleks.
It's just bland, and the Daleks are bit cartoon-y. Stick Tom Baker on the cover with a couple of Daleks and anyone will buy it. I suspect this cover was painted before the story had even been made. Apparently Graham Williams hated this as well - so I'm in good company.
No.9: Doctor Who And The State of Decay.
A dark, gloomy, gothic horror story - so why on Earth did they choose bright blue and neon pink as a colour scheme for this cover? Had they just extended that nocturnal sky across the whole cover, and ditched the pink logo, then this would have avoided this list.
No.10: Doctor Who And The Visitation.
This one is actually representative of the whole run of early Peter Davison novelisations where they dispensed with cover artists, and stuck rather bland publicity photos on the covers instead. Everyone mentions the cover for Earthshock - which doesn't have any Cybermen on it (and shows the Doctor brandishing a gun). I almost went for that one, but just think about this cover for a moment. There's a brand new, great looking, reptilian alien, an ornate robot, a historical setting, and the Great Fire of London in this story - and what do we get? A smiling Doctor standing outside the TARDIS.
Actually, a painting was submitted for this book, but Davison and his agent turned it down as they didn't think much of the likeness.
And finally, a dishonourable mention...
I never had anything like a full set of Target novels, but I got a few between 1977 and 1981. My choice from those would be Power Of Kroll - fine aprt from the really weird picture of Tom in the centre.
ReplyDeleteSpecial mention for Terror Of The Autons - not because I don't like it but because I was then very disappointed when I finally saw the final episode.
My final Target book was, I think, The War Games. If not that then Image of the Fendahl. I just moved onto more adult literature, so kind of outgrew them. I agree with Terror of the Autons. I was going to include it, and Dalek Invasion of Earth, as they bear no relation to the TV stories (the latter deriving its main images from the Peter Cushing movie version), but they are still very good covers in their own right. And you'd never dismiss The Dinosaur Invasion cover just because the T Rex doesn't look like a dodgy puppet.
ReplyDeleteYes , I agree about Dinosaur Invasion, I wouldn't want to cahnge that , not even the "KLAAK!" but alas the version I had as a kid was a reprint with a much blander cover.
ReplyDeleteThe aztecs artist nick spender was given zero reference material by either target or bbc. He had a deadline to.meet and produced an excellent piece of work. To say he hasn't bothered to research is ignorant stupid and unfair to the artist. Suggest you acquaint yourself with the facts before passing dubious judgement
ReplyDelete