"For the last time, I am NOT related to Tom!"
Doctor Who Classics Series 3 #1
IDW Publishing (March 2010)
originally published in Doctor Who Monthly #89-91
WRITER: Steve Parkhouse
ARTIST: John Ridgeway
EDITOR: Alan McKenzie
IDW COLORIST: Charlie Kirchoff
IDW EDITOR: Denton J. Tipton
IDW DESIGNER: Amauri Osorio
Two stories. In “The Shape Shifter”, the readers are introduced to Frobisher the shape-shifter Whifferdill. He’s a private investigator who takes a bounty hunter mission to bring in the Doctor on behalf of a mobster who wants the Time Lord’s secrets. However, Frobisher and the Doctor decide to scam him out of the money instead. In the first two parts of “Voyager”, the Doctor has a strange dream, and awakens to find an old boat in Antarctica. Our heroes are attacked by an old man who wants the star maps from the boat. They follow the thief to a lighthouse guarded by a robot and Frobisher finds a spacecraft hidden underwater.
What they got right: This is the issue that introduces Frobisher, a shape-shifter who has become a favorite character among the comic Who fans. Parkhouse continued to write great stories, and captures the 6th Doctor rather well, having just finished writing the 5th Doctor for so long. (Remember that these used to be shorter stories serialized in a monthly magazine.)
What they got wrong: There is one flaw in John Ridgway’s otherwise fantastic artwork for this series, and even when I read the original black-and-white a long time ago. I don’t know if it’s just because of how long the jacket is, but there are a lot of times when the Doctor just looks stubbier than usual.
Recommendation: I thought these stories worked just fine in the original black-and-white, but the colors do add something good to the overall work, so even if you have the originals (I picked up the Titan collection many moons ago), it’s worth it to at least take a look at the IDW version.
(old comics and reprints still aren’t used in Best Scene of the Week)
Tomorrow’s Comic: The Incredibles #7
BW Media Spotlight 
Good comics.
John Ridgway is such a classy artist.
His work is somehow old-fashioned, but fits the science fiction genre so well.
LikeLike