All you ever wanted to know about animated Who, Voyager, Abslom Daak and more…

As always with coverage of this labour of love from Colin Brockhurst, Gareth Kavanagh and co., the “too long: didn’t read” version of this review is go and order it now if you haven’t yet done so – even for someone who’s been a fan for as long as the show has been running like me, there’s huge amounts of information that’s completely new.

This issue basically falls into three sections, divided by some shorter fascinating articles and fun comic strips (by weird coincidence, one of them ‘novelises’ – comicizes? – the Edmonds/Pertwee interplay before Dimensions in Time’s broadcast that I’d actually watched a few days earlier). We get a sequel to The Iron Legion that makes for a strong 12th Doctor outing, more from both the TV21 Daleks and the Star Tigers, and an unusual Cyber-tale. A bonus piece of Who fiction comes from script editor Donald Tosh – I’d love to know more about how and why!

The opening part of the magazine focuses on the many different attempts to revive Doctor Who in animated form, with a particular emphasis on the Nelvana series, which had got a lot further – and a lot more official – than I had ever understood before. Richard Bignell’s pieces delve deeply into the creation, its strengths and weaknesses, and its eventual fate, followed by Nick Pegg’s assessment of the pilot… which you can then listen to brought to life by Arthur Bostrom and co. in the accompanying audio (which will get its own review). Nelvana weren’t the only ones – there’s discussion of the other proposals over the decades (and mention of events at Visions 97 which I MC’d and dimly remember some kerfuffle at!). Certainly as far as the Nelvana version goes, I still can’t decide if we dodged a bullet here, or it would have been an intriguing Cushing-eque sidestep…

The second portion deals with one of my favourite ever periods of the comic strip, the Voyager sequence by Steve Parkhouse and John Ridgway. Once again, there’s plenty of behind the scenes information and analysis – including details on the changes made for the Golden Wonder versions (so that’s what happened to Peri!).

The concluding part is focused on the Daleks in various guises, with a number of pieces by Alan Stevens, whose style can be a little offputting at times; this moves into an appreciation of Phil Bevan before ending with a look at Abslom Daak in his many different forms, with Stevens highlighting how “Steve Moore’s straggly, sinewy, murdering, rapist, Taxi Driver-style misanthrope was never going to be a viable character in a kid-centric publication”.

Verdict: Copiously illustrated, with pretty much some new insight on every spread, Vworp Vworp 5 continues its excellent run. 9/10

Paul Simpson

 Issue 5 (and previous issues) can be ordered here