In addition to being a Multiversity staffer and podcaster, Chris Thompson is the brand manager for Doctor Who’s publisher, Titan Comics.
Although Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor was the one who launched a new era for Doctor Who on screen, it was David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor who really broke through and cemented his return … so it’s little surprise that Ten remains one of the most popular Doctors to this day.
Creator Nick Abadzis (“Laika,” “2000AD”) has been chronicling the adventures of the Tenth Doctor for Titan since they first got the license three years ago – and in that time he’s contributed to the character in ways that expand upon, and give extra depth to, his television adventures.
With the start of “The Tenth Doctor Year Three,” we felt it was time to shine a spotlight on Nick and his regular collaborators Giorgia Sposito and Arianna Florean as they chronicle the ongoing adventures of Ten and his companions Gabby and Cindy:
Chris Thompson – How would you define your work on the Tenth Doctor? And how does it differ from what you’ve done previously in comics?
Nick Abadzis (writer on “The Tenth Doctor”) – I write the continuing adventures of the tenth Doctor. I approach it as if we’re doing a new TV season, very much in the spirit and continuity of the Russell T Davies’ era. I’m mindful, of course, that this is a different medium, with all its own grammar and possibilities and none of the budget restrictions of TV, so while I don’t try to mimic Russell’s style of writing per se, but there’s certain rules he set down, and I try to abide by those while adding my own special ingredients and flexing my own authorial interests. It’s like being a showrunner for comics.
Every job in comics is different from the last, or should be. It’s what keeps it being a great job; it’s what keeps it fun and interesting for the readers. On a personal level, I’m known for both writing and drawing my own graphic novels, but actually I started out writing scripts for other artists, for venerable comics publishers like Marvel UK, 2000AD and the like, so in a sense, this is me returning to that – I’ve been doing a lot more of it over the last two or three years, and I’m really enjoying it, though I do sometimes miss drawing. The advantage there is that because I think like an artist, the artists I work with know that I want them to have a good time making the stories we create together. I’m lucky in that, on Doctor Who, I have a very patient and good-natured team to work with.
Giorgia Sposito (artist on “The Tenth Doctor”) – I’m drawing Tenth Doctor and this experience is becoming exciting and so funny. I, for one, am a fan of the TV series and I’m so happy Titan Comics chose me to join the creative team of my fave Doctor. I’m drawing partly also as a fan because I wish readers recognise in my works the character of Tenth Doctor. And this is precisely the difference between this project and the other projects.
Arianna Florean (artist on “The Tenth Doctor”) – I follow a lot of television series and Doctor Who is one of my favorites, so the possibility to work on these comics is a great honor and a great joy for me, exciting and funny. Obviously thanks to Titan Comics for choosing me.
Chris Thompson – What do you think is the appeal of the Tenth Doctor? He seems to resonate with a lot of readers, but what makes him work for you both personally and creatively?
Nick Abadzis – I can’t answer that question easily. I feel like I’d be trying to reduce it to a formula, and at this stage, he’s so deeply embedded in my brain that it’s hard to get a sense of distance on it. There’s a big part of my creative mind currently given over to thinking like the tenth Doctor, so it’s very tough to reduce his appeal to a set of characteristics, although obviously a huge part of his charm has to be all the qualities both David Tennant and Russell T Davies endowed the character with. I’m obliged to take that, respect it and build on it – I hope I do, readers seem to think so – particularly the way he speaks. All the Doctors love language and have their particular vocal tics, but the tenth really likes to mess around with words, like a little kid, trying them on for size and pronouncing them in funny ways. I try to keep that evolving.
Continued belowThe tenth’s affable, “everyday genius bloke” quality disguises a much darker, wounded sort of character – I’d say “brooding” but he rarely stops moving long enough to ever dwell on anything, and that’s entirely deliberate on his part. His joy and unbound, almost childlike curiosity is real, but deep down, there’s that buried survivor’s guilt that makes him not quite trust himself, and that’s why he needs his companions, who, in spite of his tendency to inadvertently put them in danger, have incredible faith and belief in him. That’s why he, almost more than any other Doctor save perhaps the ninth, really needs his friends. Sometimes he overestimates their abilities – towards the end of his life on TV, he gets more and more reckless, so I foreshadow that in these comics.
He’s at his most dangerous when he’s alone. He’s dangerous all the time, really – you don’t want to push him too far. A lot of his adversaries make that mistake, happily. He has a huge inability to suffer fools gladly, but he won’t take terrifying villains entirely seriously either, which means he’s a gift to write for.
Giorgia Sposito – I think the character of Tenth Doctor achieves resounding success with readers for his liking and his impulsive and easygoing way to face his adventures. All that contributes to David Tennant’s performance who created this incredible character.
Arianna Florean – What I can say? Guys … Tennant, it’s Tennant ^___^
He is incredible and Nick was able to fully grasp his appeal.
Chris Thompson – How easy (or difficult) is it to capture the tone and body language of David Tennant’s Doctor in your work?
Nick Abadzis – I write full scripts, so in the descriptions I suggest poses and expressions to Giorgia or our guest artists, but I leave it them to interpret it and “perform” it the way they think fits. This morning, Giorgia blew me away with about ten pages of our next issue, all delivered at once – she never fails to do something completely unexpected… she takes my panel descriptions and does them on a bigger scale than I ever expect. She is amazing. Likewise, Arianna goes above and beyond the call of duty with colour… Her work does what I feel great movie music soundtracks do, which is to support the emotional temperature of a scene, and never by signposting it. She just puts in all these small elements of detail – lighting, effects, skies and reflections, stuff you’d barely register consciously but which go a great way to subtly support the overall mood.
We’re very lucky to have she and Kristy (Hi-Fi, who sometimes guest colours when Arianna’s very busy) and we also recently had Valeria Favoccia doing about half the pages of #3.1. By the way, Arianna is also, of course, responsible for the look of Gabby’s sketchbook pages whenever we get to see those – she creates Gabby’s drawn inner life and insights into the Doctor.
They are all very patient with me when I ask them to change something!
Giorgia Sposito – In my work, I give so much importance to expressivity and body language of characters. So I can say drawing Tenth Doctor is really my “cup of tea”! 🙂
Arianna Florean – I’m the colorist, my research is create the right atmosphere. Colors, shadows and light typical of the world of the Doctor, something to familiar.
Chris Thompson – As a result of the schedule, you often need to alternate and do different arcs … How do you maintain consistency while doing that? What have you done to help make it a smoother experience for both readers and each other?
Nick Abadzis – I write in sequence, one episode after another from a year-long arc plan. These days, I generally write for Giorgia and Arianna but if anyone else comes up on board, we welcome them and it’s always lovely to see the new cadences they bring to the characters.
I also give my artists as much ref as I can, if it’s helpful – we have a Dropbox folder that’s being forever updated with new stuff for each story.
Continued below
If we have a guest artist and colourist, such as Valeria and Kristy whose pages dovetailed with Giorgia and Arianna’s on #3.1, there’s a lot of Dropbox sharing and email chains that allow everyone to shape their individual visions into a coherent whole. I keep an eye on it, but thankfully so does Jess Burton who sees everything I do (and more) as well as Andrew James, our senior editor. Valeria and Kristy did a superb job stepping up to the plate and harmonising their pages with Giorgia and Arianna’s.
Chris Thompson – How much do you think about the time in which your stories are taking place, as well how you might be able to have some meaningful impact upon the Doctor’s character?
Nick Abadzis – You mean the time period? Gabby and Cindy are nominally from “our” present, from now. They’re modern girls, so they’re our “audience identification figures,” if you like. If I’m setting a story in the past, I do a fair bit of reading and research to get the facts and tone of the period right. I did a lot of reading about Neanderthal humans when I was writing the Munmeth arc. I read a lot on the history of New Orleans and listened to a hell of a lot of 1920s Jazz when I was writing The Jazz Monster, which as well as being fun deepens the sense of place and time. Gives you a sense of atmosphere. I’m a great believer in historical research – if you can find a way into a period character, someone who lived at the time, you can ground your story, earth it in something that feels real which makes your fantastical elements all the more believable. Everything is a fine balance between so many elements anyway.
As for the Doctor, I’m not sure you can ever really change him – the Doctor is the Doctor, and to a certain extent, we’re beholden to a pre-established continuity – but we can shed new light on him. What you absolutely can do, and should do, is reveal new things about him, new aspects of his behaviour, reveal hitherto unknown details about his personality and past, which is what good companions will help to do. The tenth Doctor is very happy that these two girls from Brooklyn found him, and he’s having a good time showing them the universe.
Chris Thompson – If people wanted to go back and explore the back catalogue, what would you recommend in terms of stories you are most proud of personally?
Nick Abadzis – I’d say begin at the beginning. Get to know Gabby, Cindy, and the tenth Doctor’s friendship with them. Theirs is a multifaceted relationship, an ever-deepening three-way friendship and they’re all layered characters and all the artists who have drawn them have portrayed them with a richness of detail that I just couldn’t imagine back when Elena Casagrande and me started out on this book. Overall, I’m incredibly proud to be working on them and be a tiny part of Doctor Who history – I feel very lucky to have been asked to continue the adventures of the tenth Doctor. It’s a privilege and I’m having an incredibly good time doing it.
Giorgia Sposito – I’ve joined in the narrative cycle of Year Two from issue 11, collaborating with two great artists like Elena Casagrande and Eleonora Carlini. I suppose first issues of Year Two are important because of the meeting between Tenth Doctor and his companions. Among issues realized by me, I liked so much drawing “the Jazz Monster” where I enjoyed the research of tradition and historical setting.
Arianna Florean – To be honest, I’m fond of all the stories. I repeat, I am a fan of the Doctor and all the stories excite me.
Chris Thompson – Now, looking ahead to Year Three, what can people expect see in the upcoming year that they haven’t seen before?
Nick Abadzis – I’ve just finished an arc that takes the TARDIS crew to ancient China, which, without giving it away, has a small third Doctor Easter egg hidden in it.
Continued below
Those couple of scripts were actually very tough ones to write, because I wanted them to be a lot longer and could’ve written a whole year long arc of Doctor Who set in that place and time period. I’ve always had a fondness for Chinese mythology and its ancient history, so I was spoilt for choice with what to include. Surprisingly, the tenth Doctor fits very well with the accoutrements of that time so maybe he’ll return there one day if I can find a good excuse. (Do I need one? He has a TARDIS!) The Doctor encounters a very slippery adversary whom he’s encountered before and yet hasn’t (that statement will make sense when those stories appear in print). This entity makes him very, very angry, so we’ll get a glimpse of that “Time Lord vainglorious” there. Later on, you’ll see a return of the Time Sentinel(s) from Year 2. They have a score to settle with the Doctor, and that also won’t be pretty. I can promise drama.
Giorgia Sposito – I’ve just read the script of issue #3.3 and I can’t wait to start it. The best part of working with Nick Abadzis is all his scripts are a discovery: there is always something never seen before. So we will see some good ones!
Arianna Florean – I’m sure , Nick will do a great job as always! I will continue to engage in research of the atmosphere to best accompany the reader visually, in these new adventures. I’m very happy to be working with this team.
Finding Your Local Comic Shop.
How can you get your hands on comics by all these delightful people? Well, your friendly local comic shop can help. Most of them do mail order, and you can find your closest store with the Comic Shop Locator.
Looking Further Afield.
Big Finish Productions :
Our friends over at Big Finish Productions have also continued the adventures of David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor – with help from the man himself.
Mid-last year they released an all new box set featuring three new adventures with his popular companion Donna Noble (as played by Catherine Tate). We spoke with writers Matt Fitton, Jenny T. Colgan and James Goss about their approach to the Tenth Doctor:
Chris Thompson – What do you think is the appeal of the Tenth Doctor? He seems to resonate with a lot of fans, but what makes him work for you both personally and creatively?
Matt Fitton – He is the Doctor who has rediscovered his joy at being the Doctor! He’s got this boundless enthusiasm for everything – coupled with a very strict sense of right and wrong. You cross him at your peril. There’s just a sense with David Tennant that he’s enjoying every second, and its infectious when you watch him and when you write for him.
Jenny T. Colgan – I think he’s the most human Doctor we’ve- still-ever had. When I’m writing new Who I always take it as a general rule that Matt’s Doctor doesn’t understand human emotions, David’s does and Peter’s does, but he doesn’t care that much. (And Chris’ would, but he’s still too angry about everything he’s been through).
So you’re always interested in more than just how Ten solves problems; there’s always that emotional response too.
Also he’s charming- deliberately charming. That may or may not work for you as a viewer, but I liked it a lot. Matt’s charming almost by accident, but David does it on purpose. And finally, his period was an absolute peak of RTD and Steven Moffat working together. They were like Lennon & McCartney. I mean, David got just the most astonishing run of classic stories.
James Goss – His fundamental NICENESS, but it’s a niceness you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. He’s a good, kind, fun man who can’t stand awfulness. When he decides that’s it, he sets his face against it and presses on. Whereas The Fifth Doctor would feel guilty about doing something bad, you can just see the Tenth Doctor walking away from a calamity he’s caused without a second thought. Because you know he’s done it for good reason. And he’s happy with that.
Continued belowChris Thompson – Until now we’ve only seen the Tenth Doctor on TV and in comics, so what challenges did you face in bringing him into the world of audio drama? A lot of David’s performance is about physicality and expression, so I assume you had to be quite clever.
Matt Fitton – I definitely hear his lines in his voice in my head – I have to try them all out! Of course there are certain expressions and catchphrases, but we made a conscious effort to avoid using them specifically, and to try and evoke the same character by other means. Of course, when David and Catherine went to studio, they ended up adding in some things themseleves – at the start of mine, there’s a moment when the Doctor and Donna are mistaken for a couple and they both said ‘Shall we do that thing?’ So that was lovely to see, that consistency coming across from TV.
Jenny T. Colgan – Haha, you’re 100% right; he does a VAST amount with his face, which is much harder to do when you can’t see him. On the other hand, of course, if he’s acting your words he’s going to make everything a thousand times better than it is on the page, because he’s one of the best actors in the world. All the Doctors are.
Chris Thompson – How easy was it to find David’s voice as you wrote the dialogue? Were there any tips or secrets that you used to get there faster?
Matt Fitton – I watched lots of Series 4 – he is different with each of his companions – but that Doctor-Donna relationship is one of the strongest and easiest to tap into. Just a sense of two great mates bounding across the universe together – and ribbing one another from time to time – but each one is learning from the other.
Jenny T. Colgan – I think I knew I could write Donna’s voice and then they kind of play off each other really. I feel RTD wrote them such a deep relationship it’s easy for everyone to understand exactly where they stand from the get go, so he already did all the heavy lifting- I mean, can you imagine a more perfectly efficient dialogue exchange than:
Ten: I just want a mate
Donna: YOU. WANT. TO. MATE???
So when a genius has already set up the relationship and the character, you should have all the information you need really and your job is not to bugger it up.
Also Ten second guesses himself; he’s not (quite) as arrogant as other Doctors. He doesn’t fly off on tangents like Matt, but he loves words. I had a list of banned phrases- ‘allons-y’, repeating ‘no no no Yes! NO’; “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”, just a list of the kind of thing that I absolutely wouldn’t use, but I would think about the cadences. Plus we watched all of the episodes over and over again, not just the ones I usually watch a lot like Silence in the Library. I hadn’t seen the Daleks in New York one for ages- it’s got Andrew Garfield in it! Amazing!
James Goss – I’ve been lucky enough to write for him before (with Dead Air) so I was aware of how great David is on audio. The worst worst thing would be to write him as a pantomime figure – all loud exclamation marks and hooting catchphrases.
The secret is also to put all the effort into getting Donna right. She’s a complicated character and one of the best things ever created by Doctor Who. When the Doctor and Donna interact, if they’re just bantsing away then it’s going to be hideous.
Chris Thompson – Although they’re doing a lot more new series work now, there’s something about Big Finish which is still very classic in its style and feel. Did you look for a way to marry the old and the new in this version of the Tenth Doctor, so as to play to those strengths?
Matt Fitton – What I wanted to do was evoke that RTD-era series opener – with an alien threat on a recognisable present-day Earth. The big difference is of course the lack of images, the colours, the movement, the fast editing, which is so much a part of the New Series feel on TV – so we have to conjure up the setting, the monsters and the locations with some ‘Big Finish’ shorthand – translating from a visual to audio medium. But the sound design is always fantastic, and of course it helps in that people know London: they know what an empty tube station looks like, so just a suggestion is often enough.
Continued belowJenny T. Colgan – I’m not really a <> writer. I don’t write people meeting people they know and I don’t write self-referential stories- ie they all turn out to be connected in some secret way or the entire story revolves around something the Doctor did in the past that we don’t know about, so in that sense I’m quite a Classic Who writer. I prefer Monster of the Week to canon, does that make sense?
James Goss – Lots of really, really short scenes.
Chris Thompson – Given that David and Catherine are such large personalities, how much did you have to think about the supporting cast and their dialogue to keep them from being overshadowed?
Matt Fitton – Again, I used the RTD episodes as my template. There are a few guest roles, all of whom need to be clearly drawn characters from their very first lines – and I know Big Finish always get fantastic actors. Of course, being Doctor Who, there has to be death and destruction, so we should feel something for these ordinary people being placed in danger. They populate the world so that the Doctor and Donna have something to save.
Jenny T. Colgan – Hahaha, in retrospect harder than I managed in the end and I should have focused more on the supporting cast. It’s a learning process. I do have a gigantic sarcastic gangster octopus who’s meant to be scary, but he isn’t really.
James Goss – Quite a bit – after all, I suspected the cast were going to be astonishing, so you didn’t want to waste a lot of stellar actors on characters who just had surnames and yelled “Kill them! Kill them now!”
Chris Thompson – Without giving it all away, can you tell us a little bit about your story and why Doctor Who fans should go and check it out?
Matt Fitton – As I say, with mine, I am going for a ‘series opener’ feel of those RTD years. Something that would fit seamlessly into Series 4 . The Doctor and Donna visit London, but find something very strange is going on with the technology …
Jenny T. Colgan – Calibris is basically a planet-sized King’s Cross, a massive spaceship intersection and the Doctor and Donna end up there and get caught up in some smuggling.
James Goss – It’s about Donna getting married again. And, of course, it all goes without a hitch.
Chris Thompson – Outside of your own work at Big Finish, what’s been getting you excited in the wider world of Who-fandom?
Matt Fitton – I have been loving Big Finish’s Torchwood series – More Than This, Broken and so many others.
Titan Comics are recent discovery for me, and I am looking forward to catching up with all the Ninth Doctor stories especially!
Plus of course, the Series 10 trailer has me very excited for the arrival of Bill – I can’t wait to see where the Twelfth Doctor’s journey takes him next …
Jenny T. Colgan – Ooh, I am doing a two LOVELY projects for younger readers I can’t talk about yet, but they are very very exciting. And Doctor Puppet and I are desperately trying to work together. It will happen. Somehow, some day.
James Goss – I’ve become stupidly gripped by Paul Cornell’s Third Doctor run. The cliffhanger to issue three!!!!
We hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse behind the scenes of the Tenth Doctor in both comics and audio form. Send us your comments and feedback @ComicsTitan on Twitter and Facebook.
