Convention Special

"We want his stories."

Writer: Matthew Dow Smith

Format: Comic Strip

Released: July 2011

Printed in: 2011 Convention Special

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory

Synopsis

The Doctor takes Amy and Rory to the San Diego Comic-Con so that they can meet Hamilton Wilson, author of the comic Captain Rocket. But Hamilton's work has been spread across the stars and now a small group of aliens want more of his stories. And they are willing to use any means necessary to get them.

Verdict

Convention Special was a pretty decent but somewhat average little story to continue my reading of the Eleventh Doctor Archives volume three from IDW. It was certainly a unique adventure and I am a big fan of a comic convention special story being set in the very comic con that it is being sold at. I also loved how the love of stories and comics and an adoration for one's heroes shone through in this story. That was a really positive aspect of its storytelling and undoubtedly its highlight. It was also what it was aiming to do the most with the plot line becoming secondary to the love of comics. The comic strip of Captain Rocket being prominent alongside its creator of Hamilton Wilson was a nice touch and I loved the idea of both Rory and the Doctor being fans. Amy was less understanding but she never tried to ridicule them for liking comic strips which was something I feared may occur. One big negative for this adventure was the artwork for her character and I have to say it was quite awful in my opinion! That was a big shame as Karen Gillan's appearance never really seemed close on the page. The characterisation, whilst not amazing, was less inaccurate so that was something at least. I thought the Eleventh Doctor was written pretty well and his love of the whole comic con idea and people coming together simply because of the stories they loved was wonderful. It was a real love letter to the fans at these conventions who would probably appreciate them the most. I am fully on board with providing a story for those specifically at the convention, but I cannot help but feel this really should have been included in the second volume of the Eleventh Doctor Archives instead of here. The unnamed alien and its species attempting to kidnap Wilson because of his stories was quite something and I did like how his story of Captain Rocket was on board NASA probes all over the universe. I'm not really sure though if I buy that this species came all this way just because in his stories, Wilson's character was victorious. I wasn't much a fan of the brain-drain machine of the Trylonians and as Wilson stated, why wouldn't they at least just ask him first? I didn't like that. The overall plot was quite dull and didn't actually do much for the overall story with the love of comic cons being what I cared about most. Rory was quite humorous in this one and when the alien was attempting to kidnap Wilson, I half expected it to be him that was harassing his hero's creator. The Doctor was less inundated with the writer but meeting people of this calibre was hardly new. I hoped for a little reference to Timelash with the mention of H. G. Wells but alas that didn't come around. Not much actually happened in this adventure and I feel like I'm going to become really repetitive if I go for more, so I'll stop here and just say whilst I really liked the convention appeal, the overall story was somewhat lacking. Overall, a decent read but improvements definitely could have helped. 

Rating: 6/10