Comments on: Honourable Mentions 1

By: Stevie T

Stevie T — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:01:02 +0000

“Surely in the Dr Who case they are selling the books based on the success of the TV series… so why didnt they just use a still picture from the series on the cover? seems strange”

In the 80′s, they finally figured that out, but they were still awful. “Hey take a still of a monster, cut out the background and slap it on the book. No, it doesn’t have to be the monster in the story!” Sometimes they would also put a still of the Doctor on the cover as well, from some completely different scene with the background cut out. Then they would make the background color something totally hideous, like varying shades of Puce. They were ridiculous.

The only thing worse were the “Americanized” editions my friends and I occasionally found. Someone, somewhere, had decided that we Yanks just couldn’t understand a British book, so they had been edited to Americanize the punctuation and spelling of several words. Like we couldn’t figure out that “tyre” was the same as “tire”? Sheesh, we are not idiots. And then they had to have a forward in them written by Harlan Ellison (it wasn’t good), and they blazoned this fact across the covers in Big Letters so we would know what great company we fans were in.

By: Ugotpwn3d

Ugotpwn3d — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:59:57 +0000

Well, I guess they had to get people to spend £2 somehow

Orginal batman movie? Is that the one where they turn all the world leaders into dust? Doesn’t it also have batman punching a shark! I wish I’d started my weekend with that!!!!

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:35:01 +0000

thanks Justin, followed a link here from twitter – had a lot of fun checking out these great covers!

And the original Batman movie is a great way to start the weekend!

Jon

By: JustinLeego

JustinLeego — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:08:36 +0000

Welcome to the site, Jon, a pleasure to have you here!

Your comments are putting me in danger of kicking off the weekend with a rendition of the original 1960′s Batman movie in full shark-punching glory…

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:29:57 +0000

What the hell is that Day of the Daleks cover about? There was no spaceship or huge firey planet in that story, just three Daleks wobbling along a canal towpath with the operators’ feet showing. I am guessing the gorrilla is supposed to be an Ogron but even that doesn’t even look like one.

Reminds me of those old 1930s and 40s serials such as Batman and Flash Gordon where the posters were big, bold and busy and promised much more action than they actually delivered.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 01:56:16 +0000

My favourite Doctor: Tom Baker
My favourite stories: City of Death, Human Nature

By: little mi

little mi — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:18:40 +0000

I have to say I’m not a Docter Who person but the Doomsday Weapon is my fav. Love the crazy heads within crazyheads with random naked man.

What more could a girl want!?

PS. good luck with the poetry reading and the kilt!

By: SI

SI — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:58:58 +0000

I do appologise Chris! I didn’t realise the other ones were the Pertwee! I guess I just assumed they were all Baker.

Come to think of it… I do have a strange memory of that terrible dinosaurs. I’m not old enough to remember when they were first on TV but they used to show all the old ones on BBC2 at dinner time. But I still knew terrible effects when I saw them!

Do I dare start a Who conversation? Chris, favourite episode + Doctor etc?

By: CSA

CSA — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:40:58 +0000

Good job Chris! I knew there was someithing wrond with the 5m tall dude.
I remember watching the Day of the Daleks series with my dad when i was really young. I vaguely remember being scared by them.

SI: that was one of my proudest TV predictions, made better by the fact i was only half serious.

In some ways some of the really bad 70′s covers you could get away with having now. The whole “retro” look etc. I think maybe 1/3 people who saw you reading that on a train might even think its cool.

Surely in the Dr Who case they are selling the books based on the success of the TV series… so why didnt they just use a still picture from the series on the cover? seems strange

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:16:59 +0000

Finally my having watched every Doctor Who episode comes in useful. All of these covers massively misrepresent the episodes in question. The giant head with pointy teeth was not a 5m tall monster, but a human-sized monster with fake teeth and a wig. The other three books all star the Jon Pertwee doctor. The Doomsday Weapon cover bears little relation to the Colony in Space episode it’s based on, the Day of the Daleks was set on Earth and contained no alien planets or spaceships, and the Invasion of the Dinosaurs only contains a few solitary dinosaurs rather than the hordes shown on the cover, and in the TV show were the most fake looking dinosaurs ever recorded.