Review 2010: The Opinion Engine: 29/31: Also I'd love to hear what you think of Alan Moore from your perspective (if that means talking about his Doctor Who comics so be it...) (suggested by @linkmachinego)

Comics That Alan Moore wrote any Doctor Who comics demonstrates both just how wide and flexible the franchise is and also how Moore bestrides the British and global comics world like a giant bearded colossus. In truth his Who work consists of five back-up strips in the 1980 version of the comic featuring spin-off stories for some of the supporting characters, Cybermen, Autons, Sontarans and timelords and were more in-keeping with his concurrent work on 2000 AD than anything else, the most notable creation, the Wardogs being resurrected by Moore to reappear in his work for Captain Britain.

So he didn’t actually write for the timelord himself which is a pity since the anti-authoritarian themes in much of Moore’s work chime well with the Doctor’s own philosophy and though the timelord would never indulge in the violence inherent in the character of V, there is still some crossover in their methodology, not least in taking full advantage of the element of rumour and legend. As the series has gone on, the "oncoming storm" moniker has been just as potent a weapon against his adversaries as his sonic screwdriver (cf, The Silence in the Library).

But Moore’s work work did go on to influence the series in other ways. Script editor Andrew Cartmel was a fan of The Ballad of Halo Jones and apparently showed the comics to his scriptwriters during the latter days of the classic series as an example of the direction in which he wanted the series to develop and clearly elements of that strip show up in the whole of his era, with Paradise Towers in particular even allowing something of the aesthetic to spill out onto the screen, in the costumes and souless tourism.

Most recently, Alan’s daughter Leah co-scripted the best comic to come out of the US Who license with IDW, The Whispering Gallery, in which the TARDIS lands within rooms upon rooms of talking paintings on a world that’s outlawed emotion which captures the sadness inherent in the Doctor’s eternally long life and even manages to add a whole new companion to the mythology within its twenty-odd pages. Perhaps sadly this will as close as we get to seeing a Moore writing for the timelord, not least because as he says in this clip from 2001, he’s a purist who thinks it wasn’t the same after the 60s: