Doctor Who Annual 1986

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1773421.html

This was the last of the old Doctor Who annuals, a series which started in 1966 and ended in 1986. It is one of the more interesting ones - not a huge variety of material, with just seven stories and a feature piece about the work of a make-up artist on the show, but the stories are fairly better than those in the 1985 season which preceded this annual; the Doctor / Peri relationship seems rather more on track, and both are drawn in loving detail; there are two stories featuring the Master, obviously the Jonathan Pryce incarnation from The Curse of Fatal Death judging by the art. Going back to 1966, I was struck that one story, "Beauty and the Beast", reads like an obvious rewrite of The Savages, and another, "The Radio Waves", has significant borrowings from The War Machines; I wonder if Ian Stuart Black was consulted? While I can't claim high literary quality for this collection, it does feel in the tradition of Who, and so one can conclude the series of annuals on a relatively positive note. ( )