The Art of The Abominable Snowmen

Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen was written by Terrance Dicks, and was the first ever Second Doctor adventure to be novelised by Target. It was published in November 1974, with cover art by Chris Achilleos.

The producer of the series at the time, Barry Letts, was a practicing Buddhist and he was unhappy that real figures from the history of the religion had been used to name the characters in the TV story, so Dicks subtly changed them - usually shifting a single letter (Thonmi becoming Thomni for instance).

The portrait of the Doctor comes from a publicity shot from The Three Doctors, whilst the Yeti derives from a Radio Times photoshoot from around the time that Pertwee was cast as the Third incarnation. 

Jamie and Victoria come from a photograph taken on location for this story, omitting Travers standing beside them, pointing.

This was one of Achilleos' favourite covers for the range. He particularly liked the Troughton image, stating that he liked to see cover figures engaging with the buyer of the books by looking straight out at them - and the fact that he looked so stern.

The book contains internal artwork, six scenes in total, by Alan Willow. He has clearly had access to some visual reference material as he gets the monks' outfits spot on.

Achilleos' work adorned the Turkish version of the book, above, but other countries adopted their own artwork - such as this from Portugal...

Or this from France, presentent par les jumeaux Igor et Grichka Bogdanoff. As with some of their other Docteur Who books, the Doctor has a long scarf no matter what incarnation...

The novel was reprinted in 1983, this time with cover art by Andrew Skilleter.

It's rare that I ever like reprint artwork, especially if the original artist was Achilleos, but I like this just as much as his cover as it's a beautifully atmospheric painting. It's the same source image for the Yeti, but placed in the context of a full nocturnal landscape setting. The Yeti are said to have red eyes in the novel.

The soundtrack was released, with the usual photomontage cover, in January 2005. An old publicity shot of Troughton from his very first story is accompanied by the same shot of Jamie and Victoria which Achilleos had used for reference, this time retaining Travers. The Yeti is given bigger claws to make it look a little less cuddly. 

The narrator is Frazer Hines.

The soundtrack was released on vinyl from Demon Records in September 2019. Unfortunately, the Yeti looks like it's just come out of the shower and can't do anything with its hair... A demonically possessed Womble springs to mind. It is based on a location photograph. The pattern on the transparent vinyl itself was described as "Tibetan Blizzard" for an Amazon exclusive limited edition (500 copies). Everyone else just got white vinyl I believe.

The orphan second episode first appeared on The Troughton Years VHS tape (1991), and later on the Lost in Time DVD set (2004). The scene with the missing dialogue was cut entirely on the former.

The story finally arrived on DVD and Blu-ray in animated form in September 2022. 

There's zero comparison with the Achilleos or Skilleter artworks. There is a problem with the reversible sleeve, in that the BBFC classification symbol obscures the title on the spine if you opt for the old roundels version.

As the cover shows, the quality of the animation is terribly basic (or basically terrible) - as usual - but the biggest annoyance is with the great liberties taken with all of the Tibetan characters - entirely ignoring the actors who portrayed them. Padmasambhava is rubbish in comparison to the creepy character seen on TV. The mood and atmosphere of the televised episodes are lost entirely. If you must watch it, choose the B&W version. (I now only watch the telesnap version with the original Episode Two and avoid the animated instalments).

As usual, there was an expensive steelbook version available...

Am I missing something with the inner cover of this? It looks like a rather dull landscape to me. Were there letraset transfers of Yeti and warrior monks that you could stick on it to make your own adventure? Do write in and let me know. To think people actually pay extra for these things... (Regular readers will know I'm reluctant to buy the Blu-ray versions of the animated stuff since they're 2-D animation, and the orphan episodes will be out in The Collection boxsets eventually anyway).

And finally, back to decent art and the Achilleos cover is retained for the audiobook of the story, as read by David Troughton. This was released in January 2009, originally with the TV Movie logo but I rather like the 60th one. It's a pity, though, that the logo and title take up so much of the cover - the superb artwork losing much of its impact.