Doctor Who Poster Magazine (1976)

The second Doctor Who poster magazine was issued by Harpdown Publishing in April 1976, priced 30p.

Unlike the Legend Publishing mag from the previous year, this one was in full colour and had a lot more Tom Baker content. It had fewer pages, however.

On the cover, the main image came from the Genesis of the Daleks publicity session, where Tom posed with Daleks outside Television Centre. The posters were actually of the Doctor, from Brain of Morbius, and of Linx, from The Time Warrior. The photo of Sarah with the Giant Spider on her back was a little misleading, as there was no poster of this image.

The cover also promised features on Tom Baker and Lis Sladen. The Baker piece included photographs of the actor from outwith Doctor Who - as evil magician Prince Koura in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and as Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra. There was one picture of Tom from Pyramids of Mars, but oddly two of the monster images derived from Pertwee stories - an Axon, and Vega Nexos from The Monster of Peladon. At least the Vogans came from one of his stories.

The Lis Sladen feature included two images of Sarah from Pyramids of Mars, plus a couple from Season 11 stories - The Monster of Peladon again, and Planet of the Spiders (repeating that image from the cover).

The best part of the magazine for me was the monsters section. As with the 1975 poster mag, Styre's boss featured prominently. There was a photo of Tom with a Cyberman, accompanied by more Pertwee images - Aggedor, Azal and Bok.

We then had a feature which looked behind the scenes. Of the accompanying photographs, only one - of the Zygon warlord Broton - came from a Baker story. The rest were all Pertwee era. Unlike the 1975 mag, there were no images from Hartnell or Troughton stories. And like the 1975 publication, this mag was devoid of Daleks beyond the tip of an exterminator - presumably for the same reason (copyright costs).

This final page had an advert for Target books. You'll be lucky to find any for 50p these days (though I have found all of them archived on the internet, free to download).

It's interesting to note that both magazines seemed to like certain stories / aliens over others (Sontarans and Peladon creatures in both), as well as sharing an interest in images from the same stories which the contemporary World of Horror magazine seemed to favour (e.g. Colony in Space, Frontier in Space and the Peladon stories).

Finally - the two posters:

As with the 1975 magazine, my copy was cut up for the photographs a very long time ago.

Next time - a Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine feature from 1979.