Today’s Comic> Doctor Who Annual 2011

"Where did I park the TARDIS now?"

Doctor Who Annual 2011

IDW Publishing (August, 2011)

For this annual, we have four tales with the Doctor. Two have no companions, and only one is by series regular writer Tony Lee, which (like last year) is a bridge between the previous and upcoming story arc. I would like to know if the companionless stories take place while Amy and Rory are on vacation, their honeymoon, or if he had a few adventures between the first and second or second and third times he met Amy.

The first tale, “Run, Doctor, Run” has the Doctor getting into trouble (as usual) and..well, running. Joshua Hale Fialkov writes a story that’s low on story but high on technobabble. At least he makes up for it by being fun and having Blair Shedd on art.

As much as I like Shedd’s art, the best art in the comic goes to Mitch Gerads, who is assisted with colors by Kyle Latino to bring Matthew Dow Smith‘s “Down To Earth” to life. (Run-on sentence for the lose.) The Doctor, again without Amy and/or Rory, arrives in a small English village when he detects alien technology from a usually warlike race. What follows is a nice little story that’s light on action but has a lot of heart to it that I just really enjoyed.

Sadly the best story, “Tuesday”, has the worst art. Dan McDaid draws a terrible Matt Smith (the actor, not the second story’s writer, and I should note that the models for the other characters, especially the original ones, aren’t that bad) but writes a great Doctor, Amy, and Rory, the latter becoming king of England to stop a would-be usurper working with an alien invasion. The framing device of Amy writing to her parents adds something extra to the story. Deborah McCuminsky assists on colors, which are fairly good.

The final story follows Kevin the Robot Dinosaur’s first few missions with the TARDIS crew. “Your Destiny Awaits” shows that being the size of a T-Rex can be a problem when your trying to fit in with the locals…and into a Police Box. Tony Lee is the writer, of course, with some rather good art by Josh Adams and colors by Rachelle Rosenberg fit the art perfectly.

Overall, a great compilation. All the stories are good reads, and even the worst art is still decent (except for the Doctor on story 3). Any fan of Doctor #11 should get this book.