Witch Hunt Part 1

"Superstitions are coming true!"

Writer: Jacqueline Rayner

Format: Comic Strip

Released: 3rd March 2016

Printed in: DWM 497

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Clara 

Synopsis 

The Coal Hill Halloween Fair becomes a lot more scary than it should be as superstitions begin to come true! Teachers are attacked, Clara goes missing and once the Doctor gets involved, he meets a fellow time-traveller...

Verdict 

Witch Hunt started off in tremendous fashion with this opening part in the latest edition of Doctor Who Magazine. With my focus since purchasing the magazine on release day last week primarily concerned with The Diary of River Song, I must confess to actually forgetting that I had this comic strip story to do! It was only by going into town today after university and purchasing the new issue of Doctor Who Comic's Tales from the TARDIS that I remembered there was a new DWM comic strip that I should be reading first! I'll get back to the comic strip itself in a minute or two but for now, even over a week after release, I'll talk about the magazine as a whole as has become the norm in my blog entries of the monthly DWM comic strip. I love how it's a celebration of the twentieth anniversary of The Movie and in my mind it is absolutely something worth celebrating. I have never been able to understand why the story seems to come with a bad reputation because every time I've watched it, I have loved it. It's such a good debut for Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and it also serves as a proper way for us to say goodbye to Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor as he and Ace just walked off into the distance at the end of Survival. I'm yet to read the interviews in this issue but I really am looking forward to seeing what Paul McGann and Eric Roberts in particular have to say. I will of course anticipate every other interview with joy but I must say can't see the feature article on The Movie itself being topped. I loved the praise that came in it but I thought the writer was also very good in not giving it positive bias just because it's Doctor Who. That's the beauty of this magazine - it's never afraid to criticise the product and I like that. I also loved Steven Moffat's column this month and although he only answered one question, he gave us as the readers a lot of future questions for him. I was quite surprised that he considered The Rescue to be a groundbreaking story in the history of Doctor Who as it's not something I would associate the serial as being but to be fair, after Moffat gave his justification, it was hard to argue against his point. Him choosing The Daleks and The Tomb of the Cybermen as his other choices but as for my guesses on the three other stories he considers groundbreaking, I'll go for The War Games, Inferno and Genesis of the Daleks pretty much all on a whim. I'm definitely intrigued to see what he has to say. Galaxy Forum was gold despite being cut short and I even think the editor's column deserves a positive mention as that was very good. I'm looking very forward to Relative Dimensions as always and the DWM Review is always good to read. Now, back to the comic strip itself and I was delighted to find that it was written by Jacqueline Rayner. She really is magnificent and if her last comic strip of Blood and Ice is anything to go by then we're in for a treat. A Halloween story in March seemed strange but it doesn't matter at all and I liked how Clara was dressed up as a witch and set up a whole trail to find her. I'd love Clara as a prize for any game! I thought Miss Chief (a superb and typically Rayner name) was a great character and she almost seems like a female version of the Monk! What she did to Clara was quite astonishing by sending her back in time and to the mercy of Matthew Hopkins, an infamous witch hunter who killed far too many innocents. The cliffhanger of Clara being thrown in the water to test if she was a witch was marvellous and I now can't wait to see what happens in part two, which is exactly what I look for in a cliffhanger. I have no idea how long this story will go on for but the rating will appear in the final part.