AGAIN - THE DALEKS...

Calculate... calculate...

Copyright BBC TV and the Estate of TERRY NATION

Finally, my local WHS got two copies of The Daleks Special in today.  One was gone by the time I arrived, but I snagged the other one, thereby adding to my collection of this very desirable publication.  (Ah, but how do I know there were two?  Simple - I asked how many copies they'd got in.)  No, I'm not going to put spare copies on eBay at extravagantly-inflated prices, I'm just so bowled over by this magnificent Bookazine that I want as many issues as I can get.

The strips within have been reprinted before, one story appearing in a Mighty Midget Doctor Who free gift in the first issue of Mighty TV Comic in 1976, then in the '77 and '78 Dalek Annuals (one tale was in b&w).  Also The Amazing World Of Doctor Who '77 'Annual', then Doctor Who Magazine in 1980, first in b&w, and again in colour in the early '90s, before switching to Doctor Who Classics.  All 104 strips were also collected in a 1994 Special, but this latest presentation is by far the best yet. 

I happened to be lettering some Doctor Who strips for Marvel back in the '90s, at the same time as The Daleks were being reprinted, and it was a thrill to see pages that I remembered from childhood in the same mag that had my name inside.  So vivid were my memories of them that I could actually recall at which points along my route to school I'd originally read many of the early pages, and it was almost like I was 6 years old again.

And that's the same sensation I had while reading this Special - I was mentally retracing my journey to my first primary school, having bough the latest TV Century 21 from a newsagent's called Chambers, just around the corner from my house.  What's odd is that after about 42, possibly 43 issues, my family moved to another house in a different neighbourhood and I started a new primary school, yet whenever I look at the pages, I seem, in memory, to associate the remaining 61 or 62 Daleks pages with the previous house and neighbourhood, even though I was no longer living there when they were published.

Perhaps that's because the living-room of our new house, although slightly smaller, was the same layout as our former one, so any difference wasn't pronounced enough to register as a different place, and also because the initial impression the strips made on me was so great that I find it difficult to associate even the later pages with anywhere else.  But why am I unsure as to whether I read 42 or 43 strips before moving house.  I'll tell you, because maybe someone out there will be able to supply the information I need to work things out.

The first issue of TV Century 21 was cover-dated January 23rd, though it's often reported to have gone on sale on January 19th.  That seems odd to me, because it doesn't give it a full week's shelf-life in shops.  However, jumping ahead, #s 40-43 carried a 4 part Fireball XL5 story (illustrated by Frank Hampson) and I'm pretty sure the story ended before we moved, which was on November 8th.  Number 43 was dated November 13th, which means that if the same dating procedure was followed as with #1, it went on sale on the 9th, the day after we moved.

If that's true, then I couldn't have read the fourth and final part in my old house as I seem to remember, but must've read it in my new one.  Unless, of course, by then, the comic was going on sale earlier to give it a full week's shelf life before being replaced with the next issue.  (If so, it would've gone on sale on the 6th.)  Would anyone out there have access to that info, so that I can finally determine what number of issues I read before my family flitted?  It might not mean anything to you, but I'd love to know.

Anyway, another self-indulgent personal memory, but hopefully you'll overlook my selfishness.