Doctor Who
Magazine, Annuals
And
Other Cool
Stuff
Doctor Who Annual
Five Publishers have been involved with producing Doctor Who Annuals over the years
For those people not familiar with the British concept of the Annual, an Annual is an A4-sized slim hardback book priced at pocket money prices and aimed at the children's market. The Annual was released near Autumn, in time for the Christmas Market (hence the name Annual), and featured anywhere between 50-100 pages in length and consisted a mixture of prose, comic strips stories, quizzes, games and factual articles. Usually the authors and artists are not credited.
The Doctor Who Annuals were published each September between 1996 and 1979, after which it moved to an August publication schedule for the remainder of the early series.
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Every year between 1965 and 1985 (with the puzzling exception of 1971), Manchester-based publishers World Distributors released a Doctor Who Annual. They also published four Dalek Annuals and one K9 Annual.
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Between 1991 and 1995, Marvel published 5 Doctor Who Yearbooks in a broadly similar format, though aimed at the show's maturing fanbase rather than the previous (kids-oriented) annuals.
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After the relaunch of the new series, Panini published a 2006 Annual and from then until 2009 published a yearly 'Doctor Who Storybook' in a similar format - which (despite the slightly childish name) are the spiritual successors to the Marvel Yearbooks. These contained simply 7 or 8 lavishly-illustrated short stories, with one or two comic strips for good measure. These Storybooks have won much praise from fans.
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Starting in 2010, BBC Books (nowadays owned by Random House) took over and started producing The Brilliant Book Of Doctor Who instead, with a similar format to the above Storybooks.
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In Parallel to the Storybooks, starting with The Official 2007 Annual, Penguin (current owners of the BBC Children's Books imprint) have published their own range of 'Official Annuals', aimed squarely at younger fans with mix of stories, comic strips, puzzles, facts and photo features (very similar to the World Annuals). Despite the lack of appeal for older fans, these annuals have been highly successful, for example the 2007 Annual was the UK's bestselling Annual of the year.
When John Nathern-Turner became producer of Doctor Who, he exerted his influence on the merchandising and ti-in products released (including Annuals). Under his watchful eye this saw an increase in product quality and standards and featured related material.
It is worth noting to the collector of Doctor Who (and indeed any other) Annual, that the Annual's year of publication is printed on the inside of each annual. However, the title of the annual traditionally refers to the following year. For example, the annual published in September 1975, is called the 1976 Annual.
However, some annuals did not include the year in the title, for example the 1982 annual is simply called Doctor Who Annual on the cover but was published in 1981. This means that some merchants often confuse the 1981 date as the 1981 Annual and lists it as such. This is something that collectors need to bear in mind when collecting the Annuals.