PSSST! WANNA SEE A PRETTY PICCIE?

Then cop a gander 'ere...

Copyright BBC TV and the Estate of TERRY NATION

Twenty-six years ago I wandered into my local branch of John Menzies (four years before it was taken over by WHS) and spied a magazine I simply had to have - The Dalek Chronicles, published by Marvel UK.  I bought three just to have spares, in case my selected reading copy ever became damaged by my incessant handling.  I loved poring over its pages and remembering rabidly devouring the strips when they first appeared on the rear cover of TV Century 21 back in the '60s.  Unfortunately, they got a page out of sequence, but that apart, it was a valiant attempt to make these strips available to a new audience, as well as to those who had read them as kids.

I've still got those three Specials, and even though I now also have a trio of Panini's recent deluxe re-presentation of the same material (though digitally restored and remastered, mostly from the original art boards), I won't be parting with my 1994 incarnations anytime soon.  (Or ever, in fact.)  Why?  Just one look at them takes me right back to 1994 in a heartbeat, that's why!  What I find hard to believe though, is the fact that more than a quarter of a century has elapsed between the two editions.  Cliched as it is to say, it seems like only yesterday since I purchased my three copies of the first, primitive (scanned from published issues of TV21) collected edition of those strips from childhood.

Now, I know I've bored you all to tears on multiple previous occasions, warbling on about the complexities and paradoxes of time, but it simply staggers my senses when it hits me just how many years have passed between now and when that first collection was published.  It's a mere three years shy of the same period of time since the debut instalment of The Daleks first appeared in 1965, and it's all gone by (spoiler alert - Gordie's catchphrase coming up now) faster than a fart from The Flash!  But that's not quite accurate when I think about it.  1965 seemed like quite a large span away from 1994 back then, but 1994 until now seems like no time at all.

Ach, I just can't get my head around it!  Sometimes, looking back today, the '60s seem like centuries away, sometimes much more recent than that.  How is such a thing possible?  Tell you what, while you're thinking about it (unless you just skipped past this post without reading it) feast your eager eyes on ace artist Ron Turner's wraparound cover to that 1994 sensational Special!  Click to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.

No, I don't really know what I meant to say with this post either, but who cares as long as it's accompanied by a pretty (and pulse-pounding) piccie like the one above?!  True, Ron's depiction of The Daleks isn't exactly accurate (then again, neither was the Marx Toys version), but it still has its own charm.