Party Animals

"Perhaps I should start calling you Dorothy..."

Writer: Gary Russell 

Format: Comic Strip

Released: May 1991

Printed in: DWM 173

Featuring: Seventh Doctor, Ace

Synopsis 

The Seventh Doctor and Ace attend a party full of sorts of personalities, many of whom the Doctor has previously encountered. But with the arrival of an old friend, both past and future, things certainly get interesting...

Verdict 

Party Animals was a superbly bonkers little comic strip! This continued my reading of The Good Soldier graphic novel in magnificent fashion and after my perhaps skepticism on whether the latest collection of comic strips would be any good after Fellow Travellers, I'm certainly being proven wrong if the last two stories are anything to go by! I think I was initially worried that after reading the sublime collection in Voyager that this wouldn't live up to expectation but with this story being a great follow up to The Mark of Mandragora, it seems I'm sorely mistaken. I'm delighted about that though and I'm excited by the prospect of having the title comic strip yet to come. I really liked the start of this story which is where the opening quote came from and it's one that I just absolutely adore! Ace constantly referring to the Doctor as Professor is one thing that really irritates me about her and is probably a large reason why she's my least favourite companion of all time. That's not his name and despite her continuously being told that, she still persists with the incorrect title. It really does annoy me so for the Doctor to turn the tables and try and annoy Ace by calling her Dorothy, which is actually her name so it differs from her calling him Professor, which she instantly wasn't happy about. Now she was in the position she puts the Doctor in and she didn't like it. Maybe she'd call him his proper name now? I bloody hope that's the case! There was no real plot to this story other than a great big party and I don't know why but I just loved it! It was clustered and disorganised but it was just so much fun. Considering this story only had six pages to play with it did rather a lot! We saw Daleks apparently thinking of love, Draconians and even a nice throwback to Polly the Glot! Ace got to club a Sontaran which I'm sure she would have enjoyed! However, I thought the artwork of Ace was pretty horrendous which was a real shame. She looks so detailed on the cover artwork but once inside, in this story particularly, Sophie Aldred was not captured greatly at all. I think that's a real shame in a story such as this where so many past villainous and characters were captured wonderfully. The Kandy Man, Minotaur and Ice Warrior were illustrated fantastically. It was like a trip down memory lane with all these characters popping up! It even seemed that the Melkur wanted to join the party which was quite a shock I must say after the events of The Keeper of Traken. I was also very intrigued to see what appeared to be Bart Simpson in the amalgamation of many alien races that had assembled at this party. The characterisation of the Seventh Doctor was once again nailed and thus far in the graphic novel a job well done has been achieved in terms of that. I quite liked that the Rani got namedropped but I wasn't quite sure about the story surrounding Shaman Khan. I did like the final page though I must admit in it being the Doctor's future and his past. The cameo shot of the Fourth Doctor was tremendous and I do love seeing past incarnations of the Doctor crop up in comic strip stories. It's so simple how it can be achieved so I like that it's taken advantage of. It definitely should be. Overall, as I said at the top the best way to describe this comic strip is just superbly bonkers! It definitely impressed me especially with it only being six pages and I'm now really looking forward to seeing how the rest of the graphic novel pans out! 

Rating: 9/10