Donald Cotton wrote the novelisations of both of his own stories, as well as tackling Dennis Spooner's The Romans. In each case, he opted to include a lot of humour, and to play about with the story structure. Homer narrated The Myth Makers, and The Romans was presented as a series of letters and journal entries, and here we have the story as told by a dying Doc Holliday to a journalist.
Quite a few changes are made by Cotton, with a scene of the Clantons attempting to blow up the TARDIS with dynamite, Ringo meeting his end in a hotel bedroom instead of at the actual gunfight, and Ike being captured instead of killed. Kate Fisher is renamed Kate Elder - one of the real Kate's various names.
The book was published in January 1986, bearing cover art by Andrew Skilleter.
A common publicity image of Hartnell is amended to give him a stetson. We also get a gunslinger against a Main Street backdrop, a man who could be either Holliday or Earp. Both dress in black and sport moustaches in the story as broadcast.
1989 saw Star Books release this with The Myth Makers as one of their double volumes. It was the artwork for this story which graced the cover, set in a silver frame.
Holliday fails to feature on the colourful photomontage cover for the BBC Audio soundtrack release. Earp and Johnny Ringo feature alongside the Doctor and both companions. This was released in January 2007.
Peter Purves plugs the gaps in the narrative and also contributes a short interview. Extra chapters were added so that the full rendition of the Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon could be heard, for those masochistically inclined.
This was re-released in September 2013 as part of a box-set of complete Hartnell stories previously released individually.
The same Hartnell photo from the soundtrack release features on the cover for the VHS release. He's joined by Holliday and Earp, with a backdrop of a generic Western scene at sundown (or sun-up). This is a desert view, complete with iconic saguaro cacti, despite the story itself being totally town-bound and set within buildings or the odd urban street.
The tape was first released in November 2002 as part of a First Doctor box-set (with The Sensorites and The Time Meddler).
US fans had to wait until October of the following year for this story, when it was released as part of the huge 11 tape "End of the Universe" set.
The DVD release also formed part of a bigger box-set when it arrived in June 2011. In this case, it was accompanied with just one other story, 1984's The Awakening.
The connection was simply that both stories were set on Earth - hence the box-set title of "Earth Story". Clearly the BBC were keen to get the range finished, thought that The Gunfighters' reputation might lead to it not selling well on its own, and had a leftover Davison two-parter hanging about, so cobbled this set together.
Adopting a similar colour palette to the VHS, it's a fairly busy cover (courtesy of Clayton Hickman), managing to squeeze in five of the guest characters as well as the Doctor. Once again, the Region 1 version allows the cover image room to breathe - though the Region 2 cover allows Holliday to overstep the bottom banner.
The audiobook of the Target novelisation was released in February 2013, and features the original Skilleter artwork. The narrator is an actual guest artist for a change (the majority feature a companion actor or someone totally unrelated who has appeared in "NuWho"). In this case, it is the late Shane Rimmer, who portrayed Seth "Snake-Eyes" Harper.
It was later re-released as part of the second "History Collection" box-set.
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