Issue Description

The second Souvenir Press volume starring the Daleks, notable for including a story pitting them against the Mechonoids, robots that had featured in the Doctor Who TV serial "The Chase."

Dalek Book (1964)

Publisher

Panther Books Ltd

Volume Description

The first licensed tie-in fiction related to Doctor Who, Souvenir Press' The Dalek Book saw the Daleks beat the Doctor into both prose and comic strip (the Doctor would not appear in a comic until TV Comic #674, released on 14th November 1964, nearly five months after The Dalek Book was published). Two sequel editions were released annually; though their titles differed slightly, they were part of the same series, with storylines and characters carrying across from one release to the next.

The separate licensing of the Doctor and the Daleks, made possible largely because Dalek creator Terry Nation owned their copyright while the BBC owned the Doctor, meant that the Doctor did not appear in these books, though he is mentioned in the first one, and his granddaughter Susan Foreman does appear in the first, while his later travelling companion Sara Kingdom, who was also owned by Terry Nation, made her comic strip debut in the third. Similarly, because of the Daleks being licensed to appear here and in TV21's Dalek Chronicles, the Doctor was initially unable to encounter them either in his weekly TV Comic strip or the World Distributors Doctor Who Annuals; it was only after the Daleks' solo ventures came to an end that they would menace the Time Lord in comics.

After these three books, it would be nearly a decade before the Daleks again ventured out into solo action in an Annual format, when World Distributors bought the license and produced the Dalek Annuals.

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Status: Not in Collection