L. J. Scott: When Doctor Who visits another planet, I like it best when they come up with a unique culture within which to set the story. This is what we tried to do with "Retirement?" Last time a planet where it always rains, this time a secret haven from globalization, or in this case, Galactification.
Also, this is the first installment made after studio robb and I had seen a 7th Doctor/Ace show. You might notice the difference.
Page 1: Normally Doctor Who handled their cliffhangers by placing the Doctor or one of his companions in jeopardy, then wait until the next installment to show you how they got out of it. For the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio show, Douglas Adams would often ignore the moment where the last show left off and instead start the next installment with an historical or philosophical yarn that would seem to have nothing to do with the previous installment until the very end of the yarn. This style of opener was later adopted by 'The X-Files' for many of their multipart shows.
This is the path I took to open this episode of the strip. It came to me as a late night inspiration that could only be exorcised by typing it out. I love these little late night inspirations and I hope you like it too!
Side note - 'Tellurians' is what Robert Holmes liked to call Earthlings in Doctor Who, I used this in honor of him. Me? I prefer Terrans, myself. 'Earthlings' sounds too much like 'weaklings' to me...
Page 2: The Doctor shushing Ace before she says how she wished this planet were hers is from a little story our DWIS Newsletter desktop publishing guru Tom Johnson once told me. Many years earlier he said that he was once told, or new of someone who had been briefed, that when visiting Arab countries, one had to be careful not to say "I like your such-and-such." because in their culture they would then feel honor bound to give it to you. Instead you'd say something like "That bobble is a wonderful touch for your home." complimenting the item, while acknowledging where it belongs. This is one of those many little things one hears during their life that enters the writers' part of the brain to come out many years later as part of something else.
Page 5:
For those of you without a magnifying glass, it says "Ultra-Zapper Mark VI' on the side of the gun. Intended only as a descriptive note in the script to distinguish it from the other guns we'd already seen in the strip, it became something stenciled on the gun itself.
studio robb: Because this story took place on a
tranquil religious planet, I thought giving the art a "Japanese Ink
More importantly,
DWIS was on a very fixed budget, so Xeroxing was to cheapest why to do it.
Adding to the woes: my originals needed to be shrunk down to DWIS page-size, so
it had to be Xeroxed twice, which *really* wiped out the wash...Needless to say,
after seeing how poorly the art reproduced, I never tried an ink wash again.
But here it is, published for the first time, with the grey wash intact!
This was also the
first time I insisted on having an extra page. L. J. worked hard to keep the
story down to four pages, as editor Jay Ritchie had directed, but I really
didn’t want to cram things on a page any more than I had...Jay grumbled about
having an odd page to deal with, but he still was nice enough to let L. J. and
myself get away with it...
Page 1: I
really like the "no sound!" explosion!
Page 4: My memory is foggy on this point, but I
believe having Susan try on The Fourth Doctor’s famous hat and scarf was my
idea...I just figured that, since Susan was trying on clothes, why not throw in
something gratuitous for Tom Baker (The Fourth Doctor) fans.
After
having cut Ace’s hand off in chapter two, Editor Jay was careful not to cut the
scarf off as it drapes over the border...but unfortunately, the printed page was
longer than what I drew, so the scarf doesn’t trail off into infinity in the
DWIS version, as it does here.
Page 5:
I designed Qui’Ouder’s
word balloon to make it look "muffled"...
I
tried to make Susan’s clothes appear "futuristic" to place her in a time period
other than 1960
The
comment about having her "hair done by Vidal" is a nod to a little-known, but
yet famous fact about Susan. The creators of "Doctor Who" wanted Susan to look "other-worldly",
so they had one of the newer BBC hair-stylists design her hair to look
"other-worldly"...that hair designer was none other than *Vidal Sassoon* "before
he hit the big time".
Also
note that Ace is finally reading "Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland"...
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