He wasn’t just a fine painter of heroic subjects, including some of fantasy’s most kick-ass Amazons. He also turned out a respectable kiddie’s cover or two.
There honestly was never a stigma in branching out from your usual market if you’re a book illustrator. Go ask your grandparents about Chris Foss. And a guy’s gotta eat. When a commission flies, it can put food on the table for years.
By my reckoning, between 1973 and 1977 Chris Achilléos produced cover illustrations for 28 of the Target Doctor Who novelizations in the UK, as well as a couple of excellent big-format tie-ins. Here’s a list of all the ones I know.
Almost from the start in 1963, there had been novelizations of some of the more popular stories in the Doctor Who TV strand, in other words those with the most iconic monsters. For example, David Whittaker’s novelization of Doctor Who And The Daleks was first published in 1964.
(Please note that the terminology I use here is as follows. Doctor Who is a series. Each year it broadcast one or more seasons — which is not the word native Brits would have used. Each season consisted of one or more stories, and each story back then occupied between two and more than ten weekly half hour episodes. Most stories were from four to six episodes long. Each episode usually ended with a cliffhanger that was recapped the following week. The show was broadcast early on Saturday evening by the BBC, which meant no commercial breaks.)
Beginning in 1973, these existing novelizations were revamped, and a whole clutch of new ones written, for a glut of books published by Target, mostly in cheap small-size paperbacks (there were some hardback editions) aimed at schoolboy pocket money — they cost as little as 30p. They were chunky enough to look substantial and were designed to a common, collection-prompting style, usually predominantly white.
Target continued to commission and publish them until 1993, releasing 156 in total (all but six of the broadcast stories to that time). Though occasionally the scriptwriters of the original story adapted the novelization — chief among these Malcolm Hulke — others were farmed out to a group of writers for hire, most notably Terrance Dicks who seems now all but synonymous with the books.
Today we identify the novelizations by the number on their spines, but these are not in chronological order of release for the first 73 issues. Instead, these early books — from 1: Doctor Who And The Abominable Snowmen to 73: Doctor Who And The Zarbi — were numbered by title alphabetically regardless of their publication date, showing that Target had those 73 titles in mind from the start. From 1983 onwards new numbered editions were added seemingly at random, and the “And” was dropped from the title.
Hence, Target never linked the books to the numbering of the stories in the chronology of the original series. (In reality, The Abominable Snowmen was story 38 and The Zarbi story 13.) Moreover, some story titles were changed for novelization. The Zarbi, for example, was originally broadcast as The Web Planet.
What’s notable, though, is that the books covered the entire span of the series to date, including a jumble of stories that had starred past incarnations of the Doctor, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, as well as Jon Pertwee (current when the Target run started) and Tom Baker from later in 1974. Stories by successive incarnations were added after.
The design didn’t change much, at least in the 1970s. To begin with they had the words DOCTOR WHO in plain blocky black letters at the top. Beginning at the end of 1975, this was altered to the more familiar curved DOCTOR logo in a variety of colors, which lasted until the end of the 73 original releases. The style was then updated to the then-current neon tubes logo, and so on. More recent reissues have sometimes changed the cover illustration altogether, but some have kept the original design save for updating the logo to its current version.
Achilléos’s outstanding designs aside, these illustrations were an uncomfortable collection of the excellent and the cartoonish, the adept and the amateurish. Only Achilléos is listed below, which means some of the better books that were published in the first few years are omitted if he did not design them. He ceased providing new covers in 1977.
The list is in chronological order of the first transmission of the story they cover, not in chronological order of the release of the novel. In the list I give the story number followed by the Target number for each like this: 2-16.
When I say “first transmission” that’s a bit of a misnomer. Some early stories exist only partially or not at all, which means they’re not available for re-broadcast. The BBC thought as little of Doctor Who as it did of other popular TV series and the radio sessions it conducted. It wiped a great deal of its archive. What it didn’t wipe was unlikely ever to have been re-broadcast in the 1970s. Essentially, you managed to catch the episode on transmission or you missed it altogether.
What this means is that for many of the boys who bought the early Target novelizations, they were not a chance to relive a story they’d seen on the TV. It was the only chance to experience that story. They were too young to have seen the William Hartnell episodes and the BBC wasn’t going to indulge them. Target, therefore, was the means by which boys of the 1970s built their understanding of the history of Doctor Who, not the TV series itself.
This makes the novelizations something quite special. On the one hand, the contents were simple and short enough for the children’s market, easy to read, not hard to comprehend for kids, and not expected to be read by their elder brothers or fathers. (I know I’m categorizing here: predominantly the readership was male, for sure, but not entirely.) Hence, if anything they could be even more one-dimensional than their original broadcasts.
But Doctor Who was envisioned from the start as an educational series. It was meant to be entertaining learning for bright kids, and so the books could be relatively sophisticated, too, if they wanted. Indeed, some authors took the opportunity to pad the word-count with light social commentary.
Moreover, in the 1970s, particularly in the Pertwee era, the surface plot of a Doctor Who story — the monster-of-the-story adventure, all running around and shrieking — was usually a surface gloss for the kids while their parents could pick apart a deeper sociological message smuggled inside it.
This deeper message could be a little obvious and fatuous — the Daleks representing the dangers of fascism, say — or sneakily political, including stories set against industrial disputes and issues with the EU. All this fed into the novels, along with the new author’s own political and social views.
The program knew exactly whose houses it occupied. It was left-leaning but not dangerously so, and it was infotainment drilled with laser precision at the sensibilities of white middle-class boys. (A few girls might have watched the series and read the novels, but they were not the ones who were meant to be educated. I know, I know.)
What the stories found it harder to do, at least during that time, was woke. You can hardly expect Doctor Who in the 1960s to have a less than prurient attitude to sex, but there were few characters of color or independent women. It’s only in the Pertwee era that intelligent female sidekicks began to appear, beginning with Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, and in particular the winningly strong Sarah Jane Smith who was — unlike what came after with Leela and Romana — not intended just to lure TV-controlling fathers into tuning the family in.
Still, it did its best with the sensibilities of the time. My own feeling is that the 1970s were the series’s golden age, in particular the Pertwee years. The plots deepened later, but eventually the 2005 reboot turned the whole concept into an excruciatingly naked prime time exercise in social conditioning, shallow Auntie-knows-best nonsense that it continues to peddle to this day.
Personally I find it unwatchable now, but it’s always enthralling to rediscover vintage episodes, to marvel at just what they achieved with the budget and technology restrictions to hand. And even the novelizations are a fun way to pass a rainy afternoon. Collectable, too, if only for their covers. Here are most of the best.
The first doctor: William Hartnell
2-16 Doctor Who And The Daleks (1974)
The introduction of the Daleks in the seven-part second story in 1963 cemented Doctor Who as a phenomenon at a stroke — who now but trivia buffs remembers the first story? (Answer: it was all about bickering cavemen.) Whitaker’s novelization hit the bookstores within months of the story’s broadcast and has largely remained in print ever since. Achilléos gives it a dramatic reading, the Tardis and the Daleks seeming to swirl around the Doctor wreathed in the smoke from their exterminator guns.
10-17 Doctor Who And The Dalek Invasion Of Earth (1977)
Daleks again feature in, chronologically from broadcast date, the second Achilléos cover, though this one is actually one of the last of his covers in the Target release schedule and far superior. There’s no Doctor, likely because the book had to cover both the Hartnell TV version and the 1966 movie adaptation Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. starring Peter Cushing, but an energetic montage of a glowering Palace Of Westminster as the backdrop for the twin forces of Daleks and humanity. Here we see the first in our list of Achilléos’s trademark speckled black outlines learned from comic books. The only disappointment is the spaceship, which Achilléos copied verbatim from the movie poster.
13-73 Doctor Who And The Zarbi (1973)
Here’s one of the earliest utterly alien Doctor Who stories, in which the Doctor and his companions forsake Earth altogether for a far distant planet embroiled in a territorial dispute. Originally broadcast as The Web Planet, the Zarbi are giant ants that act as the planet’s slave workforce. We see one here, glowering over the cosmic swirl of planets, stars, and its oppressor race the Menoptra, which as the name suggests are a kind of humanoid moth.
14-12 Doctor Who And The Crusaders (1973)
There were always didactic, historical stories in early seasons of Doctor Who. This one, broadcast as The Crusade in 1965, thrusts our time-traveling heroes in Palestine where members tangle separately with both Richard The Lionheart and Saladin. It’s a tough sell to boys hooked on science fiction, and Achilléos does what he can to give it excitement.
29-62 Doctor Who And The Tenth Planet (1976)
The second truly iconic adversary in the series is the Cybermen, introduced here in primitive costumes for a 1966 story in which the previously unknown planet Mondas approaches Earth and spews out the mechanized horrors that dwell on it. Hartnell’s final story, it must surely have baffled kids approaching it for the first time with little knowledge of the origins of the series — and he doesn’t appear on the cover. Still, Achilléos decks it beautifully, doesn’t shy away from the silly costumes, and his speckled black outlines are a treat.
The second doctor: Patrick Troughton
33-14 Doctor Who And The Cybermen (1974)
The Cybermen were back for Achilléos’s first cover for the grumpy second incarnation, first broadcast as The Moonbase in 1967. It’s an earlier release, and not nearly so exuberant as The Tenth Planet, but the costume design has improved slightly (nice of Achilléos to include the Cyberman’s natty zip and give it a winning smile) and though it feels perfunctory and unbalanced the speckled black outlines are again the real treat.
38-1 Doctor Who And The Abominable Snowmen (1974)
Troughton’s in full-on scowl on this equally awkward collage that again is based around the circle of a planet. Another historical time-hop, it enabled the series to introduce 1930s Tibet to viewers, to make a commentary on Buddhism, and to fight a rather ludicrous enemy that here doesn’t even have the good grace to camouflage itself in white as you’d think a snowman ought to do.
39-33 Doctor Who And The Ice Warriors (1976)
From the past we leap directly to the future and yet more snow. Earth is in the grip of a new ice age, and strange aliens are on the attack. They’re actually Martians frozen in the ice like The Thing From Another World. Here we see one of them terrorizing all-but-forgotten companion Victoria with his sparkly popcorn claws. All ends well, however: the Doctor devises a way to enact genocide on the monsters, huzzah.
41-72 Doctor Who And The Web Of Fear (1976)
Our portly ill-disguised Yeti are back to wreak havoc on London in modern times, but the British military is on the case under the command of the redoubtable Colonel (soon to be Brigadier) Lethbridge-Stewart, subsequently a series regular as head of the British response to alien attacks UNIT. Regardless of the title and Achilléos’s cover, there are no spiders, and Troughton isn’t really as sardonically delighted to see a Yeti polish off our troops as he appears.
The third doctor: Jon Pertwee
51-6 Doctor Who And The Auton Invasion (1974)
I just love this cover. The Doctor shares equal billing with the Brigadier, each reacting in their characteristic fashions to what seems to be a normal terrestrial octopus bathed in the frantically burning lights of fireballs, undifferentiated brown gloop, and those comic book speckled black outlines. It all but fizzes off the page in splops of cartoon energy. I’d hesitate to claim that Achilléos never quite managed to capture Pertwee’s rugged but rubbery charisma — some of the covers that follow depict him poorly — but he’s recognizably heroic throughout. My Doctor for sure. The story itself, broadcast as Spearhead From Space, memorably involves aliens that use animated shop dummies as their troops.
52-9 Doctor Who And The Cave-Monsters (1974)
An equally iconic menace, the original broadcast The Silurians saw the good D trying to help out ancient intelligent reptiles that had an advanced society on Earth long before man. This wonderful cover balances a prehistoric volcano (and there are always volcanoes in prehistoric times, for some reason) against lots of Achilléos fizz around the Silurian. Oh, and there’s a tyannosaurus rex too, just because, and it won’t be the last.
57-10 Doctor Who And The Claws Of Axos (1977)
Retaining the original title for a change, this story sees a somewhat shaggy Doctor — half ageing hippy, half old man of the woods — reduced to a comic book insert while the golden alien Axon blasts its energy-draining beams and monstrousness is revealed. Indeed, there’s everything here but the claws.
58-23 Doctor Who And The Doomsday Weapon (1974)
The Master, by this point in the series revealed as the Doctor’s arch nemesis, the Time Lord equivalent of Professor Moriarty, gains billing here (in the form of the terrific Roger Delgado) in a lively condensation of what was originally broadcast as Colony In Space. A complex plot, nothing at all similar to Aliens more than a decade later, has an evil human industrial concern on a distant planet unleashing monsters on unsuspecting colonists.
59-15 Doctor Who And The Daemons (1974)
So inspirational was this book (certainly not a re-broadcast, since the BBC all but entirely wiped the story) that the innocent pre-teen me once wrote a school essay in which I used the spelling “daemon” and was thoroughly chastised by my English teacher. So much for school. It’s a beautiful early entry in the series’s recurring folk horror strand, and may well have helped spark my love of the genre. Forgiveness, then, to Achilléos for the silly cover.
60-18 Doctor Who And The Day Of The Daleks (1974)
It surely isn’t long until each incarnation of the Doctor faces his ultimate foe, though surprisingly Pertwee had to wait out all of two seasons and nine stories before getting his chance. Achilléos’s cover is a blaze of exterminator gold. The creature top right, incidentally, is a far-future apelike Ogron from a planet the Daleks have enslaved.
61-13 Doctor Who And The Curse Of Peladon (1974)
Surely every bit as silly as The Daemons but with superior technique that makes even the clumsiest of foes seem compelling. It also boasts one of the best renditions of Pertwee’s face. We see an ice warrior (first serialized in story 39, above in this list), the monstrous Aggedor, and a big-eyed ambassador from Alpha Centauri.
62-54 Doctor Who And The Sea-Devils (1974)
Another fine summary cover, and a welcome rendition of companion Jo Grant. You can pretty much construct the story from these elements, or at least concoct a reasonably exciting version of your own (and without budget restraints!). There’s a memorable monster, but once more it is the Master who is really to blame.
65-64 The Three Doctors (1975)
The first of the series’s repeated urge to peer up its own back passage, this may well have seemed more necessary at the time since so many of the early stories no longer existed — and certainly regardless of what is implied by the cover the BBC had very little interest in its legacy characters. Breaking every schoolboy rule of time travel, the present Doctor and his two previous selves (but not, of course, any of his later selves) come up against the monstrous power-sucking Omega, a Time Lord gone to the dark side. The Three Doctors was broadcast in 1972.
66-8 Doctor Who And The Carnival Of Monsters (1977)
Conceptually, the book posits a most magnificent early virtual world scenario which the broadcast itself cannot hope to match. Even Achilléos’s wonderful head-snapping sea serpent is just a big rubbery thing on the screen. (To be fair, you’re not supposed to see much of it on the low resolution TV sets of the time.) It turns out the Doctor and Jo are stuck inside a sort of miniaturized zoo exhibit, but it’s the getting there that matters, and Achilléos’s cover may well be his best of the whole list.
67-57 Doctor Who And The Space War (1976)
If you realized what I was implying in my description of The Three Doctors, you won’t be too surprised by Frontier In Space (as this story was originally known in 1973) or this novelization with its wondrous cover and revamped title. Plainly Star Wars was well under production when this book was released — filming began earlier in 1976 — but who needs all that when you’ve got a clunky pre-Space 1999 ship and a couple of neatly unpleasant aliens?
68-46 Doctor Who And The Planet Of The Daleks (1976)
Surely another of Achilléos’s finest Doctor Who covers, here’s the big velvet man and his hunky Thal ally grasping the proverbial nettle for all it’s worth. The danger is vividly portrayed thanks to lashings more of Achilléos’s speckled black outlines and some of his patent fireballs for good measure. A boy-baiting triumph.
71-22 Doctor Who And The Dinosaur Invasion (1976)
There’s surely something purposefully dotty about this cover, which depicts everything you need to know about the story much better than the crap monsters that appeared in the actual show. Achilléos chooses, correctly I think, to accentuate his comic book aspects to the extent of actually putting in a speech treatment for the only time in this list. But the artwork is superb. Just look at that bloated volcanic sun sinking over our second and last view of Westminster turned itself to a kind of primordial swamp.
The fourth doctor: Tom Baker
76-4 Doctor Who And The Ark In Space (1977)
A lot of fans like Tom Baker best, but I’m not one of them. For me, that cat-with-the-cream grin didn’t suit the character, and the Michael Moorcock look seemed like the costume department was trying too hard for quirk. I’m also distressed that the first Baker story was the risible Robot. And don’t get me started on K9. Still, the writing remained good, and Baker starred in some of the very best stories of the series. This marvelous entry has the Doctor beaming into a space station where a wasp-like alien is using the sleeping crew to incubate its eggs. Achilléos dishes up a superb cover, with the strong intimation that the Wirm has lopped or is in the process of lopping off Baker’s head. Fat chance.
78-27 Doctor Who And The Genesis Of The Daleks (1976)
Most assuredly one of the best of all Doctor Who stories, and though Achilléos’s cover isn’t iconic all it really needed to do was what he did: present eager boys with the Doctor, a Dalek, and Hitlerian evil mastermind Davros. Achilléos depicts the trio, with none of his compositional flair or design aspects, as photorealistic mugshots side by side on a plain field, suggesting he simply copied photographs and dashed the thing off quick. But again, what more did it need?
79-51 Doctor Who And The Revenge Of The Cybermen (1976)
Someone made a mistake, or decided the title was just too long for the cover, and omitted the “And.” It was rectified first for the 1979 US edition on Pinnacle Books (which did not use the Achilléos image) and then for the 1983 “25th Anniversary” Target edition which was otherwise a facsimile of the above but in which the price had leapt from 40p to £1.95! It is again assuredly not one of Achilléos’s best, with the billowing inferno seemingly meant to help disguise an awful rendition of Baker and the other characters shoved awkwardly in the gaps.
80-40 Doctor Who And The Loch Ness Monster (1976)
Another piecemeal design but I like it a great deal. Achilléos nails everything that’s best about Tom Baker’s Doctor, and the rainbow tunnel even manages to evoke the series’s title sequence while adding some much needed attractiveness. A strange choice of title, though — the original broadcast was named Terror Of The Zygons — and we honestly didn’t need yet another saurian hand puppet when we have something as gloriously weird as the Zygon to enjoy. I bet those suckers give them complexes.
82-50 Doctor Who And The Pyramids Of Mars (1976)
Grim renditions of the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith (it’s thrilling that she’s wielding the gun right here on the cover) are a strike against bothering with this novel, as are the terrible title (taken from the broadcast) and a ripped but comical mummy. However, the story buried inside, archaeological hi-jinx set in 1911 and much what you’d expect, may be merely an excuse to teach Egyptology but is well plotted and engaging.
85-55 Doctor Who And The Seeds Of Doom (1977)
Chronologically the last of Achilléos’s stories, the cover is a fine summation of the unique style he brought to the series. It’s crowded with energetic motifs, including the last of his speckled black outlines. As usual, the human characters (the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith) are rendered as comic book cutouts, but the story’s mutant-plant-gone-mad plot is all there on view, including its thrilling denouement.
The Doctor Who Monster Book
Achilléos provided exactly the simple collage covers that these two big format Target tie-ins required, complete of course with the latest Doctor at the heart of things. The first was released in 1975 — 64 thrilling pages and a poster for just 50p! — and the second in 1977 (with a price hike to 70p and no poster). The inside, incidentally, was all production photos rather than art, with text by Terrance Dicks.
active maas 