A couple of years ago I nominated my top ten Target Book covers - and my ten least favourite. For the latter category it was either the case of bad likenesses, or misleading and / or irrelevant imagery.
The above cover made it into the bottom ten due to the prominence of the animals on either side of the Hartnell portrait (which is derived from a photograph from The Celestial Toymaker).
Yes, the TARDIS arrives in a biodome at the start of the story, and some of the animals do contribute towards the cure for Dodo's cold - but they really don't symbolise this story at all.
We do get a little Monoid portrait, but the aliens really ought to have been more prominent.
Maybe one of those images of Dodo posing with a Monoid might have provided a better inspiration.
The novel, by its original writer, was released in March 1987, and the cover is the work of artist David McAllister.
Pearson includes Dodo on his cover, with a full length Monoid in the central position.
A trio of purple-wigged Monoids appeared on the cover of the BBC Radio Collection soundtrack CD. The Hartnell image originates from this story - for a change. It's taken from a publicity shot of him, Jackie Lane and Peter Purves with Monica the elephant.
This was released in 2006 - the story's 40th anniversary - with linking narration by Purves. He also contributes to a bonus interview.
The Ark came to VHS late in the run of releases, when they were using photomontage covers.
The year was 1998.
The artist is Lee Binding, who pretty much took over from Clayton Hickman's photomontage covers around this time.
As is often the case, the Region 1 cover allowed the image space (no pun intended), and works a lot better than the UK cover.
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