TV Comic #1204
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeTV Comic #1204 (cover-dated 11 January 1975) marks the comic-strip debut of the Fourth Doctor — Tom Baker's incarnation — making it the first printed appearance of what would become one of the most recognisable versions of the character in popular culture. The issue launched the eleven-part story 'Death Flower,' opening a new chapter within the long-running Polystyle era that had been the sole home of Doctor Who in comics since 1964. Rather than staging a dedicated regeneration story, the strip broke new narrative ground by folding the Doctor's changed appearance into a brief two-paragraph synopsis in the opening panel — a compact but deliberate editorial choice that acknowledged the show's regeneration concept for comic readers for the first time in the Fourth Doctor's case. As the launchpad for all subsequent Fourth Doctor Polystyle strips, this issue sits at the boundary between the strip's Third Doctor years and the Baker era that would run until Polystyle's BBC licence expired in 1979.
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By mid-1974, TV Comic was still running Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) adventures even though Pertwee had already departed the television series; the editorial team at Polystyle deliberately held back the changeover until Tom Baker had actually appeared on screen as the Fourth Doctor, which happened with the broadcast of 'Robot' in late December 1974 and early January 1975. Artist Gerry Haylock, who had illustrated the Doctor Who strip almost continuously for roughly three years across Countdown, TV Action, and TV Comic, was tasked with drawing the debut strip but faced a practical challenge: Polystyle had access to only a small number of BBC-supplied reference photographs from Baker's first televised story, making it difficult to establish a reliable likeness of the new lead or of companion Sarah-Jane Smith. Haylock and Polystyle parted ways amicably after 'Death Flower,' with Haylock moving on to Scandinavian magazine illustration work; 'Death Flower' thus served as both the Fourth Doctor's comic-strip debut and the end of Haylock's long tenure on the strip.
Trivia · 8 facts
- TV Comic #1204, cover-dated 11 January 1975, is the first comic-strip appearance of the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker's incarnation).
- The issue opens the story 'Death Flower!', which ran across issues #1204–1214, making it an eleven-part serial.
- Rather than a dedicated regeneration story, the opening panel of 'Death Flower' contained a brief two-paragraph synopsis introducing the new Doctor to readers — the first time such a textual bridge was used for a Doctor changeover in this strip.
- The story pairs the newly regenerated Fourth Doctor with companion Sarah-Jane Smith and involves the investigation of a sinister company called Vegpro and its alien plant-based creations, the Sarricoids.
- Artist Gerry Haylock illustrated the strip; 'Death Flower' was his final Doctor Who comic work after approximately three years on the strip across Countdown, TV Action, and TV Comic.
- Haylock worked from only a small set of BBC-supplied photographic references from Tom Baker's debut TV serial 'Robot,' which made capturing accurate likenesses of both Baker and Elisabeth Sladen a noted production difficulty.
- TV Comic had continued publishing Third Doctor strips through the rest of 1974, waiting until Baker had appeared on television before switching incarnations — a deliberate editorial decision unique to this transition.
- The Polystyle Doctor Who strip that began here ran through nine more Fourth Doctor stories in TV Comic before the BBC licence passed to Marvel UK, which launched Doctor Who Weekly in October 1979.
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