Cover Art: The Target Books

One aspect of Doctor Who to really tickle fans’ artistic taste buds is cover art. Since that magnificent 1965 Annual, artwork has painted pictures in the minds of impressionable young fans. There were stories I’d never seen as a child but which I was deeply enthralled by due to the Target book artwork. My copy of Timeframe was probably my most well-thumbed Doctor Who book in 1994 and I would trawl over those full-page images in awe. The Mutants looked like a story offering the greatest monsters of all time and I ached to see it. (Imagine my disappointment when UK Gold repeated it some years later.) Dragonfire seemed amazingly atmospheric and exciting. (Imagine my disappointment, etc…)  But those images stick around. When one thinks of a particular story, the Target cover often springs to mind. Death to the Daleks is such a vivid and striking painting, that iterations of it have found their way onto VHS and DVD covers decades later. It’s perhaps more well-loved than the TV story itself.

So what are the best Target covers? Which radiate passion and immutability? Which are not just book covers but modern art in their own right? Here’s my Top Ten. As always, please feel free to disagree below.

10: THE ICE WARRIORS

The Chris Achilleos Target book covers elicit a sense of nostalgia, of yesteryear. Whilst he’s not my favourite artist, it can’t be denied that his images positively scream Doctor Who. His Ice Warriors painting is a strikingly simple design and says everything about the Troughton story that needs to be said. Once that image has been seen it becomes synonymous with the classic black and white tale. In its own right, the painting also represents a bold piece of 70s pop art. It is in its own way, quite beautiful. 

9: THE CHASE

Alister Pearson is my favourite Doctor Who artist. His likenesses are unfathomably faithful. His eccentric arrangements are memorable and bold. His three Dalek covers – The Chase, Mission to the Unknown and The Mutation of Time are tremendous paintings. His two Daleks’ Master Plan covers recreate the epic nature of the TV originals but The Chase paints a picture of a story far more accomplished than Richard Martin’s ham-fisted (though never less than enjoyable) effort. Pearson’s cover is colourful, exciting, varied and fun. It seems to be the influence on Clayton Hickman's DVD cover too – unsurprisingly one of his very best.

8: INFERNO

For a bright orange painting, the unsettling image of a bewitched Bromely atop Inferno’s silos isn’t half frightening. With scant publicity photography from the story itself, the choice of pictures to include on a JNT-enforced Doctor-less cover must have been minute. Artist Nick Spender chooses to embellish the one photo of Ian Fairbairn and it proves startlingly effective: a microcosm for the end of the world.  

7: GHOST LIGHT

Alister Pearson’s life-like paintings really come into their own during the McCoy years. It was tricky choosing a favourite from the moody covers of Paradise Towers, The Happiness Patrol, Survival and Ghost Light. All four radiate that weird late 80s/early 90s teenage sci-fi vibe the show was about to dive into with The New Adventures. Ghost Light entirely matches the menace and darkness of the TV episodes themselves, however, and offers the most splendid painting of McCoy, one side of his Doctor’s persona shrouded in blackness. So striking is the painting, it was later used for the soundtrack CD and the BBC Audio talking book. It captures the essence of a story - a moment - and becomes timeless.  

6: THE TIME MONSTER

Not a cover that is talked about much, but it’s an extremely well-conceived design by Andrew Skilleter. JNT’s refusal to allow older Doctors on the book covers made for some interesting artworks: Frontios, Fury from the Deep and The Seeds of Death to name but a few. But this one jumps from the page, the three images tessellating beautifully to form one bold masterpiece. For such a poor TV story, the ethereality of Skilleter’s painting brings it to rich, exciting life. 

5: THE DALEKS

Those three totemic novels - The Daleks, The Zarbi and The Crusaders - are mighty edifices in terms of Doctor Who fiction. The three covers are Chris Achilleos at his most inspired. The colour schemes are rich and vivid, with strange monochrome images of William Hartnell at the hearts of the pieces. But it’s The Daleks that remains the most spectacular. It is, for wont of a better word, iconic. If there is one image which sums up the Doctor Who frenzy of the 1960s, it’s The Daleks cover.

4: THE MASSACRE

The Massacre is perhaps the most missing of all the 1960s Who episodes. Its cover is a simple and beautiful arrangement by Tony Masero. The strangeness of William Hartnell in the monk’s habit, the TARDIS burning on the pyre behind him is such a memorable image that it secures the reputation of an already well-regarded story as an outright classic. Sadly, it does nothing to help picture what this staggering tale would have looked like. But if it had anything like the atmosphere of this painting, it would surely look just as good as it sounds. 

3: THE WHEEL IN SPACE

I fear The Wheel in Space would be a pretty average story were it to miraculously return to the archives. Dare I say it, at times, it’s pretty boring. However, its partly-missing status does elevate it; we can imagine it to have the brooding majesty of the book cover by Ian Burgess. Its depiction of the vast emptiness of space, the one-armed Cyberman battered by the hostility of its environment is a moody and evocative image. What a shame it’s the rarest Target book of them all, almost as rare as its TV counterparts. Perhaps if all that remained of The Wheel in Space were the book cover, it would be remembered with far more affection.

2: HORROR OF FANG ROCK

Jeff Cummins’s haunting image of Tom Baker lingers long in the memory. It has since been replicated by the Black Sheep VHS cover, Clayton Hickman’s DVD cover and the BBC soundtrack CD. None have quite matched Cummins’s original though. Its bleak and atmospheric darkness matches entirely the creeping menace of the TV episodes themselves. 

1: THE REIGN OF TERROR

It’s one of the great publicity photographs of William Hartnell from his favourite story to boot. Here, however, it’s artistically rendered against a backdrop the TV serial couldn’t hope to portray: the guillotine looms in the distance, the executioner poised and ready. One can almost hear the jeering crowd, their arms punching the air in the foreground. And there, in the middle of it all, is the Doctor, flanked by soldiers, that strange stoic expression across his face, steeling himself to face the violence of humanity. This isn’t just a magnificent portrait, it’s an image of revolutionary France, an image even the Doctor can never hope to impress upon.

Near misses: For a while, the following titles were in my possibility list, and I struggled to whittle it down to ten. However, for completeness’s sake, here’s a few I had to say goodbye to: Alister’s Pearson’s blue-spine Curse and Monster of Peladon, as well as his Smugglers and Mission to the Unknown; Jeff Cummins’s Masterful Doomsday Weapon, his Face of Evil and the aforementioned Mutants. And also Chris Achilleos’s most exciting cover: Planet of the Daleks as well as Steve Kyte’s miraculously sinister Horns of Nimon.

JH