Tuesday 17 November 2020

THE DALEKS HAVE LANDED...

 At least, they have in MY house...

Copyright BBC TV & Estate of TERRY NATION

By all accounts this has proved a tricky publication for a lot of people to get their hands on, with it not having appeared in many (if any) WHS shops that I've heard of.  Thankfully, a few Sainsbury's stores have had them, but there must be thousands of readers looking to add this great mag to their collections who have thus far been disappointed.  So popular was the demand for it, it sold out within hours (or was it minutes?) of it appearing on Panini's online comics shop on the 11th, though apparently it will be available from other online outlets on the 18th.

Anyway, what's all the hoo-hah about and is it worth its £9.99 cover price?  You're darn tootin' it is - and then some!  All 104 back page Daleks strips from TV Century 21, the majority being sourced from the original art boards and the remainder being scanned from good quality issues of TV21 itself, all digitally cleaned up and restored where necessary.  The result is the best presentation of these strips ever - possibly even better than their original appearance back in the '60s.  (You can read the interesting article about their restoration for yourselves to see how such a thing is possible when you finally track down a copy.  There's also a feature on the strips' background, as well as an interview with Ron Turner.)

However, that doesn't mean you'll be seeing these strips exactly as they were originally presented in the pages of TV21.  Why?  Let me explain.  Having worked on some Marvel Masterworks volumes back in the '90s, where I utilised black and white UK '60s reprints to re-create and restore pages, one of the things I noticed was this:  Perhaps because of the roller method used to print them at the time, or maybe because of the photostat technology by which images were copied to supply foreign publishers - pages were stretched either height-wise or width-ways - and sometimes even both, but never proportionately.

This meant that, years later, when I reduced an image to its original page width, the height was out of proportion to it - and vice versa.  So, taking the cover of Fantastic Four Annual #3 as an example, my finished re-creation was either slightly taller or wider than its original presentation.  Nowadays I'd be able to compensate for that particular problem and bypass it, but I didn't have the necessary digital-manipulation technology at the time.

So what's that got to do with The Daleks Special?  I'll tell you.  Because original art was being used in most cases, the Daleks opening panel containing the logo, as well as the 'stop press' box in the final panel, had to be copied from printed issues (as the originals had been removed or gone missing over the years), then cleaned up and replaced onto the art, either digitally or physically (not sure which).  This has resulted in the gutters around those panels not being of exactly the same width as they were originally, meaning that not all of those particular panels precisely fill the space they occupied back in the day.  Consider the following examples above.

The higher panel is from my own copy of TV21 #1, and the lower one is from the Special.  Note that the gutter is slightly wider on the latter example.  That said, the width is more in accord with the other panels, as in the original printing it was perhaps a bit tight.  Whether the new gutter width is by accident or design I couldn't say, but on some other pages, it's a bit more noticeable, and in some cases it's an improvement, on others it isn't.  (Though not a detriment either.)  Admittedly, had this one been reproduced slightly larger, it would've filled the original space more precisely, but the same can't be said of other instances, where they're too high in relation to their width for the space provided, or vice versa.

But of course, that's a very minor quibble, and overall the magazine is a sterling accomplishment.  A few pages seem to be marred by slight colour 'splurges' and 'blotches' in places, but this is a printing flaw and not as a result of the restoration process, and I'm sure it won't spoil your overall enjoyment.  One eBay seller is currently asking around £125 for the 1994 publication of the same material (unrestored, with page ripples and other defects), but I can't see him getting that price for it now, as this new edition effectively renders it obsolete.  Grab a copy (if you find one) while you can.

So let's give thanks to Panini/Marvel for publishing this magnificent Bookazine, and also praise all those individuals involved in its production.  All we want now is a hardback edition the same size as the TV21 pages, with every strip sourced from the original art boards - and the few scuffs and flakes which are evident in places digitally repaired.  That's not too much to ask, is it?  Get cracking boys and girls - but don't take another 26 years!

 
 
And in case any of you are even remotely interested, below is the wraparound cover of the 26 year old predecessor to the above publication.
 

20 comments:

rob diablo said...

Yes..its superb!

Kid said...

Possibly the best publication this year, RD.

McSCOTTY said...

Had a look through a copy on Saturday when I was in WHS in Hamilton, it looked very nice indeed , a great item for Dr Who / Dalek fans ( which I'm not so didn't pick it up).

Kid said...

I haven't seen it in my local WHS, who say it isn't come in yet, McS. The one in Kingsgate Retail Park had four, and were bought by someone I know. I suspect that Panini will print more as it's been so popular. I got mine from Newsstand.

McSCOTTY said...

There were 3 in Hamilton when I looked. I went back to WHS about 90 mins later to pick up a rock magazine and there was only one Dalek book left . I also saw a Luis Bermejo book John Steel ( new one on me) looked like his early work.

Kid said...

Unfortunately, the guy in charge (as he likes to state) of the magazines in my local WHS is useless and I can't trust anything he says. He's told me before that certain mags aren't in, only for me to learn from other assistants that they're sitting in the back of the shop. When the first Cor!! Buster Special came out, they got 9 - I bought 2 then the guy put the remaining 7 in the back shop for a fortnight or so. This meant that the Special didn't get its full sale period, though I managed to get it put back out front and another couple of copies were sold. Utter @rsewipe - shady, devious, dodgy and dire. He was also not putting out magazines for sale on the grounds that they got nicked. Anyone looking for them would've assumed that they were sold out, and potential casual buyers would never have seen them. Great way to sell stuff, eh? No wonder WHS was recently voted one of the worst shops ever.

Philip Crawley said...

Much as I'd like to get my hands on one of these, the phrase 'fat chance' comes to mind. If collectors living in the country of publication are missing out then someone as far away from the UK as I am can forget about it I think. Looks great though.

rob diablo said...

that guy sounds like a complete twat,I Tend to try and get mine on line now, i do like going out and seeing them in the wild,our local WHS is ok but not great, i asked hem if they would save a recent Dr Who mag for me, the 1976 special, they said they could not put one aside for me because of Covid, and they could not handle the mags!, of which i said 'how they hell do you get them on the shelves then?'..crazy, i ended up getting it from Panini.

McSCOTTY said...

The thing that annoys me about WHS is that they keep moving the magazines locations around (3 times in 12 months in the Hamilton store) Magazines like Fortean Times are stocked with the New Stateman one week then 2000ad the next and when the Roy of the Rovers specials came out they were put with the sports mags (ok kinda get that) but none in the comics section. 2000AD is now racked with mags like VIZ on the top shelf etc. Saying that in Hamilton they certainly get the new comics in the shop and displayed - as noted that John Steel book , the new Shift comic mag, the Starblazers book, Daleks and the specials (COR, Misty etc) were all in my local WHS.

Kid said...

If I can get another one, PC, as long as you pay for postage and the price of the mag, I'll send you it. Interested?

******

Your WHS sounds as bad as mine, RD. A lot of them will be going out of business by the looks of it.

******

Bloody clueless the lot of them, McS. They once had all the kids comics next to the gay mags, so I complained, saying that it was hardly an appropriate place to put them. After all, you couldn't have all the gays being embarrassed by people thinking they were looking at the comics, eh? (He joked.) Other way around obviously.

Dave S said...

I haven't been able to find a copy anywhere! Tried ordering one on Forbidden Planet's site, but later got a message saying it was 'unavailable'.

Looks like Panini have massively underestimated the demand for this- hopefully they'll do a second printing.

Kid said...

I read somewhere that FP are going to have it on the 18th, DS, mail order - but I imagine that their stores will have it too. I think the online orders cleaned Panini out, which is why they couldn't supply as many stores as they otherwise would have.

Terranova47 said...

Interestingly the Dalek reprint isn't expected to be available by either Forbidden Planet or Midtown Comics the major outlets in New York City. So any shortage in the UK is not due to exports.

Kid said...

I'd be surprised if it doesn't turn up in America at some stage, T47. It's got a US price on it under the UK one, though that may only be for US buyers via the Panini site.

Colin Jones said...

I'm currently reading a book called "Wisdom Of The Ancients: Life Lessons From Our Distant Past" by Neil Oliver and each chapter begins with a quote. One of the quotes seemed very apt for this blog, Kid:

Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight
Make me a child again just for tonight

Isn't that charming? It's by Elizabeth Akers Allen who I hadn't heard of but apparently she was an American poet.

Kid said...

Very charming, CJ. So charming, in fact, that I think I might steal it for this site. I daresay she's in a great book I've got, called The Best Loved Poems Of The American People (which includes loads of British poets). Is your book any good?

Colin Jones said...

Yes, my book is very interesting. I bought it on September 21st but I've only begun reading it in the last week. And it's a hardback book, just to prove that I still buy physical books!
I'm also reading "Midwinter Murder" which is a collection of wintry/Christmas-themed short stories by Agatha Christie. This is an e-book but I already own a hardback version of Christie's "Murder On The Orient Express". I'm not a fan of crime fiction but I quite like the old fashioned settings of Agatha Christie.

Kid said...

I quite like the Christie books as well, especially Poirot. Got a Conan Epic yet?

Colin Jones said...

No.

Kid said...

Hell's bells, CJ, I don't have all day to read such lengthy epistles and then respond to them. Can't you be a bit more concise?!



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