Secret History: Doctor Who Comics - The Star Beast
I’d pioneered black protagonists elsewhere. At the time, it really was a big deal. For 2000AD, I’d created Harlem Heroes, a group of black future sport heroes which Dave Gibbons drew to perfection.
Welcome to my Secret History of Comics, where I’ve shared with you all my anecdotes and insider knowledge of creating Marshal Law and Charley’s War. Next year I’ll publish these secret histories in book form, along with more secret histories of my most iconic characters.
Now we’re in a rather special section on Doctor Who, in the run-up to the transmission of Star Beast, the first Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special!
All my Doctor Who posts will be collected and published in my new book Pageturners: How To Create Iconic Stories From The Creator of 2000AD, out some time in the second half of November. I can’t give you an exact date yet, as it’s dependent on when Star Beast is broadcast! But I will be putting the book on Amazon for pre-order as soon as possible.
I can’t wait to share the Pageturners cover with you all! It’s by artist Mike Donaldson (he of Spacewarp, The Beano and The Broons fame) and it’s a real smasher. More on that soon.
All my lovely generous paying subscribers will receive a free e-book of Pageturners, and my very generous founding members will each receive a signed paperback edition.
The first Doctor Who post that I kicked off with is free to all readers, but you have to be a paying subscriber for just £5 per month – or £50 for an annual subscription – to read the rest of the posts (there’s a free preview every week).
The Secret History of Doctor Who covers my surprisingly long history with the Time Lord. And it will give you the full lowdown on the Star Beast: how the comic book story originated with the brilliant artist Dave Gibbons, and how it came to be regenerated for the 60th Anniversary TV Special. I’ll be sharing lots of insider stories about the Star Beast that Doctor Who fans will only get to read here.
Iron Legion was popular with the readers and so, too, was The Star Beast which was later also made into an audio play by Alan Barnes.
Star Beast was especially memorable because it featured a feisty, black, female companion, Sharon, and had a strong, working class Grange Hill feeling to it; in fact, later, I wrote the comic book version of Grange Hill for Beeb comic.
I’d pioneered black protagonists elsewhere. And, at the time, it really was a big deal. For 2000AD, I’d created Harlem Heroes, a group of black future sport heroes which Dave Gibbons drew to perfection. And Blackjack in my Action comic – the story of a black boxer which John Wagner wrote. My managing editor had tried to dissuade me. He insisted it would be better to have a white boxer with a black sidekick! Really! So it was important to challenge this kind of racism wherever it appears. Including the conspicuous absence in comics of characters from different ethnicities.
And, I’m sorry to say, that managing editor’s attitude can’t easily be dismissed as the prejudice of a past generation. I had a black heroine, Eve, in my Third World War and I wrote many of the black issue episodes with a black writer, Alan Mitchell. I was told specifically by editorial that there was definite reader resistance to so many black characters.
I also had incredible difficulty finding artists who could portray a black heroine in a positive way. Truly! It looks effortless when Dave draws Sharon to perfection, but believe me, many British artists struggled with black heroines. Alan Mitchell and I would shake our heads in despair at some artists’ preliminary drawings of Eve.
So Dave’s depiction needs especially commending. He makes it look so easy. And of course, he went on to draw his excellent black heroine Martha Washington.
We have to push back against such ingrained attitudes, doubtless the legacy of Britain’s colonialism. I’m reminded of Alan Barnes when he was editor of the Megazine and he commissioned me to write Black Siddha, the story of an Indian superhero living in London. He anticipated some resistance from some readers but that only seemed to encourage him. Bravo, Alan! He felt, as I do, that the days of comics with all-white male protagonists aimed at a supposedly all-white audience were surely over, whether some readers liked it or not.
So for all these reasons, the appearance of Sharon in Star Beast was very important to Doctor Who comic.
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