Secret History: Doctor Who Star Beast Regenerated!

We entered the interior of the Star Beast’s ship. It was a terrific design which they’d really thought a lot about. Grey, hard, cold metallic lines reflected Dave’s exterior design.

Welcome to my Secret History of Comics, where I’ve shared with you all my anecdotes and insider knowledge on Marshal Law and Charley’s War. Next year I’ll publish these in book form, along with more secret histories of my most iconic characters.

Now we’re in the Doctor Who section, and last night the first Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special of the Star Beast was aired so I finally get to share with you my Star Beast Regenerated experience!

I'll post my review of Star Beast soon – that will be a free post for everyone to read.

All the Doctor Who posts are collected and published in my new book Pageturners: How To Create Iconic Stories From The Creator of 2000AD, out now as e-book and paperback.

My paying subscribers will receive their own free e-book copy of Pageturners - we’ll get that to you ASAP. And Iconoblast’s Founding Members will be getting a signed paperback as soon as we get our hands on them to send them out. Thanks for all your support!

Buy Pageturners here.

Pageturners cover art by Mike Donaldson

“The Meep! I love that story. I love it, I love it. It’s 2023 now, and Donna is married, she’s got a kid, so it should be a real family adventure, and that’s what Doctor Who and the Star Beast is: two kids find a monster in their shed, and it’s the most hilarious monster ever. A furball! Also, the story fits the Doctor meeting Donna again: the Doctor integrating himself with an Earth family and getting caught up in adventure. It is the best story in the world.
Sometimes I think, there’s no better story.” Russell T. Davies
(Doctor Who Magazine, Issue 596, November 2023)

A lifetime had passed since my Star Beast story, beautifully illustrated by Dave Gibbons, had appeared in Doctor Who Weekly.And then, in November 2021, completely out of the blue, I received an email from Doctor Who producer Julie Gardner. There was a lovely personal letter attached. It was from Russell T. Davies and addressed to me, Dave Gibbons and John Wagner. 

Russell revealed he had been a fan of our Doctor Who comic stories since he was sixteen years old, when Doctor Who Weekly began. He felt the Star Beast “sums up everything Doctor Who is, and could be.” He was “bringing Doctor Who back for a celebratory 60th in 2023 and the Star Beast would be a perfect story.”

Russell also had great memories of the other Doctor Who stories John and I had written individually.

Wow!!!

I say “Wow!!!” now, and you would rightly expect me to be gobsmacked, jaw-dropped, thrilled, excited, and blown away by this amazing and awesome news and cracking open a bottle of champagne with a cry of Eureka! 

But I didn’t.

Not yet.

Because negotiations were still going on (with Panini who own the rights). And something could go wrong. It usually did.

However, incredibly, Bad Wolf (the production company responsible for the forthcoming era of Doctor Who) wanted to do the right thing by the creators—which is not only highly commendable but it is rare in the world of British comics. Doing the wrong thing is the norm. 

So doing the right thing is a really big deal. And therefore Bad Wolf need a huge round of applause for doing the right thing. I would say they deserve a standing ovation.

But! It might never happen! It could still screw up!

And jumping the gun and getting too excited too soon is frowned upon by us British comics creators. With good reason. In order to be armoured against disappointment, we actually pride ourselves on our poker faces when we hear the thrilling news that a film company is interested in our characters. In fact, we actually have a standard mantra. Yeah, I know it sounds promising,” we tell each other nonchalantly and then add, with studied cool: “But … I’m not digging my swimming pool just yet.”