By Rob McCow

Fellow Travellers

The Collector

Fellow Travellers was published in Doctor Who Magazine issues #164 to 166, in September and October of 1990. It was reprinted in The Mark of Mandragora graphic novel of June 1993 in full colour.

The World Shapers

Script – Andrew Cartmel

Art – Arthur Ranson

Letters – Glib

Editor – John Freeman

Fellow Travellers

The family that lives in the Keeper’s Cottage consists of three generations of women. Mrs Lacy is the elder lady of the house, a vicious and domineering old lady. Although it’s not expressly stated, its made clear that Mrs Ella Cooper is her daughter-in-law and Lizzie is her young granddaughter. Both Ella and Lizzie are of Oriental descent.

Domestic trouble for the Doctor in Fellow Travellers

The Deal

The Doctor and Ace arrive at a large old house and admire an owl flying by. They head to the Keeper’s Cottage where they meet Mrs Cooper and her daughter, both of whom the Doctor already knows. The Doctor tells Mrs Cooper that if she doesn’t listen to him there will be deaths. Mrs Cooper threatens to call the police, but the Doctor says that they wouldn’t be able to help.

Mrs Lacy has locked herself upstairs, but Ace kicks her door open. The Doctor takes Mrs Lacy downstairs while Ace looks around Mrs Lacy’s room and finds a hockey stick. A small cat comes into the room and suddenly transforms into a huge, monstrous cat-beast. Ace attacks it with the hockey stick, but the cat-beast knocks her down. The Doctor rushes in and smashes it over the head with a lamp.

That's exactly what John Barnes said in his rap
 from New Order's World In Motion

The Doctor, Ace and the family run to the large old house. The house disturbs Ace, despite its obvious age there is no ivy growing on it and there is no dust inside.

Leaving the family, Ace and the Doctor search the woods. They find a terrified policeman being looked after by a policewoman. They lure the cat-beast to the police car and using a rag in the fuel line and a lighter, they blow it up. As they walk away from the wreckage, the Doctor explains that the beast was a hitcher, a disembodied entity that latched onto the TARDIS. And hitchers always travel in pairs.

They return to the house, as Mrs Cooper is putting Lizzie to bed while Mrs Lacy sleeps downstairs. Ace realises that the first hitcher possessed Mrs Lacy’s cat. The second hitcher has possessed Mrs Lacy herself. She wakes up from her nap as a gnarled reptilian beast with jet-black eyes and pointed teeth. She throws her false teeth to the ground, saying that she doesn’t need them any more. The Doctor and Ace back out of the room slowly, but when the Doctor accidentally steps on the discarded false teeth, Mrs Lacy is enraged.

Granny wants a kiss!

Outside, an ambulance arrives to take away the policeman who is delirious with terror. The policewoman says that there are no such things as monsters.

The Doctor tells Ace that the hitchers only possess bodies that are full of aggression and rage. He sends her off to find a weapon in the house armoury.

Mrs Lacy escapes the barricades that the Doctor and Ace have put up and finds Lizzie asleep in bed.

As Ace finds a Samurai Sword she hears a scream. She rushes downstairs to find Mrs Lacy holding Lizzie and threatening Ella. Mrs Lacy is angry that Ella married her son, dragging him down and mixing blood of different races. Ella shouts at Mrs Cooper to let Lizzie go. As she does so, the hitcher passes from Mrs Lacy to Ella. The Doctor tells Ace that Ella’s rage was stronger than Mrs Lacy’s racism. As Ella hugs Lizzie, the scaly skin and dark eyes fade. The hitcher is still inside her but the Doctor explains that the creature will only come out to defend. Ella’s family have been caretakers of the old house for years. He shows Ace a photo of Ella’s grandfather, a previous caretaker of the house. The photo was taken in Tibet, alongside the second Doctor.

Aww! It's Pat Troughton!

TV Action

This story bares some similarities to Ghost Light, being set in a creepy house with reptilian monsters. The tone is very similar too, with racial prejudices informing the characters’ motivations.

Suitably expanded, this story would have been excellent on TV. The transformations of the cat and Mrs Lacy into their hitcher forms would have been difficult, but most of the stories atmosphere is derived from the setting and the characters. Although Ace’s use of a Samurai Sword may have upset the censors.

For years I thought that Lizzie’s grandfather in the picture from Tibet was Professor Travers from The Abominable Snowmen. Turns out it wasn’t.

The artwork in Fellow Travellers is fantastic. The style is radically different from the usual art in DWM at this point and the difference is so pronounced it makes it all the more astonishing. Arthur Ranson has no difficulty in presenting the Doctor and Ace in realistic style. The clean, sharp lines and solid blacks are a world away from Ridgway’s softer style, but they are just as effective.

The possession and transformation as the hitcher takes over the cat is a brilliant piece of art, full of motion and speed. The transformation is completed in one panel but there’s no confusion about what is happening. A similar effect is employed in the final confrontation as the hitcher switches from Mrs Lacy to Mrs Cooper.

The possessed Mrs Lacy is a frightening creation, an old lady changed into a horrifying ogre. The design of the cat-beast is just as impressive, because it retains the basic elements of a household cat and extends them out into something grotesque.

End of The Line

This is a great comic strip. The atmosphere is thick, dark and gothic in the way that Doctor Who fans really go for. The tone is genuinely adult and shows that the Doctor Who comic is capable of producing more mature work than the action and humour-based stories that had come prior to this. The solution to the problem of the second hitcher is very clever and satisfying, unexpectedly resolving the story without bloodshed. It’s also refreshing that the young girl is threatened not because of the hitcher, but because of Mrs Lacy’s unjustified anger.

After travelling alone for so long it’s a delight to see the seventh Doctor joined by Ace in the comic strip. She was such a popular companion at the time that her arrival was long overdue. Straight away it allows the Doctor to explain what’s going without it seeming forced, it allows the story to be split into two locations and it gives the Doctor an opportunity to save someone that he cares about. The student and teacher relationship of the Doctor and Ace is spot on. Naturally Cartmel, who was script editor for the TV show for three years, is able to bring them convincingly to life and make the characters true to their TV personas.

The only qualm I have with Fellow Travellers is that it’s a little bit thin, as though Cartmel underestimated the amount of story that you could tell in the comic format. Although there’s less dialogue than usual, it’s not quite brave enough to tell the story entirely through the pictures.

Follow That TARDIS!

This story marks the first appearance of the Doctor’s house in the country, on Allen Road. This would be revisited in the New Adventures series of novels as well as the comic strip.

Technically, this is the first appearance of a contemporary companion in the comic since the departure of Peri at the end of The World Shapers. Technically because the TV show was no longer on the air.

The New Zealand Doctor Who Fanclub interviewed Andrew Cartmel about his work on the comic strip.

David: Let's leap off novels for a moment and do comic strips. Was Fellow Travellers the first one that you've written?

Andrew: Yes, at least that was the first time anyone paid me to attempt to write a comic strip.

David: I know you're not a great fan of the artwork.

Andrew: Oh that's not true. Part One I thought was absolutely fantastic. I think Arthur Ranson is capable of turning out incredible images. The thing about Fellow Travellers is I think the first part was lovingly drawn and the last two episodes were rushed and embarrassing to look at. The other thing I had against it is there's a climactic scene where the old woman turns into a monster and I left it a full page spread so the artist could demonstrate his genius but instead it's just embarrassingly naff. This was my first experience working with artists, and it is the same thing as being a screenwriter and writing a script, it goes through a transformation because other people are involved. So I guess it was a good lesson in that respect.