Talk:Untitled (TVC 798 comic story)

Notes on restoration
After some discussion with User:OttselSpy25, I have reverted this page's long-standing deletion. Back in 2017, User:CzechOut believed that this was likely unlicensed: "parody and therefore unlikely to have been specifically licensed by the BBC/Terry Nation estate"

- CzechOut

It's not actually clear to me that this is parody as opposed to just comedy; that's the sort of thing we usually need threads for, in the absence of clear-cut context (like "a Doctor Who? strip" or "parody" being written on the cover). Personally I'm not sure I'm seeing it. 1960s Daleks had a concept of "fellowship", so them talking about having "brothers" doesn't seem like "breaking the rules".

But either way, there is compelling evidence that as a matter of fact, the Terry Nation Estate did go after copyright-infringing parodies in those days; and additionally, TV Comic was printing Dalek stories in issues immediately before, and immediately after, TVC 798, so it's pretty clear they did have the license to use Daleks in original comics at the time. Even if this were parody, it would still deserve a page just like, well, every other licensed parody in the Parodies and pastiches category.

(The original deletion also quibbled with whether Rule 1 was fulfilled, but I think it's clear the idea that very short, but clearly narrative, works like comic strips fail Rule 1 is an antiquated concept. Besides, Talk:And Introducing... shows that this still doesn't warrant deletion, as do all the things in Category:Non-DWU features.) Scrooge MacDuck ☎  16:35, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree this deserves a page, but I still think it should be invalid based on Rule 4. Sure, they've never SAID it isn't in the Doctor Who Universe, but we do seem to have a "common sense" clause for this, hence why stuff like this and this are pretty uncontroversially not valid. NightmareofEden ☎  15:18, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

And I really don't think having a "fellowship" is enough, since that doesn't change the fact this conversation is solely based on a pun. It's not so much the concept of a Dalek having brothers, it's the fact it feels the need to clarify that it, in fact, has only "transistors". Without that pun this comic is sheer gibberish, and THAT'S what makes it such a blatant parody IMO. But I guess we could discuss this, but I'd be STRONGLY arguing against its validity if so NightmareofEden ☎  15:21, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

One last thing: I think this comic is far MORE blatantly just intended as a joke than a lot of invalid stuff (focusing specifically on invalid stuff that was tagged SPECIFICALLY FOR its parodic nature, of course) on this wiki, just one of many examples of this being this invalid tagged story, which I argued SHOULD BE valid but was mostly ignored. NightmareofEden ☎  15:23, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I agree with you there. I'm really not sure how anyone, in good faith, would not consider this parodic in nature. I can't comment on Dr. Who & the "Yeti" though, sorry, as I haven't read it. Danochy ☎  21:25, 18 September 2021 (UTC)


 * To be honest, I personally think that this should remain valid. Yes, the entirety of the story is based upon a pun that is essentially implausible in-universe, but I don't believe that this should be interpreted as meaning it is set outside the Doctor Who universe - nor do I believe that it is a parody, because, simply put, it doesn't parody anything.


 * My point is that while this doesn't make a whole lot of sense in-universe, I don't believe it fails any of the criteria for validaty. Besides, stranger things are valid. 📯 📂 13:09, 19 September 2021 (UTC)


 * It is quite clearly a parody of the Daleks though... Danochy ☎  23:23, 19 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't think it's clearly a parody of the Daleks. The line between "a joke featuring Daleks" and "a joke on the Daleks" is not that easily drawn.


 * That being said… when I said that this thing's validity ought to be discussed in a thread, allowing the presumption of validity to stand 'til then, I was still harbouring the optimistic hope that we would have a functional Forum within a relatively short time of my ruling. It isn't… working out that way. So, given that the emerging consensus is for invalidity-until-proven-otherwise, I'm going to reclassify it as.


 * This is not a formal ruling on an inclusion debate: if User:Epsilon the Eternal wants to create a thread arguing for this thing's validity once we have Forums, he is welcome to do so. In my personal opinion, having read the arguments here, the pun makes this likely a Rule 4 breach ,but I don't think it is sufficiently obvious to forego a thread entirely if there is dissent. Scrooge MacDuck ☎  23:38, 19 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Just to quickly respond to Epsilon the Eternal's counter-examples of strange but valid things; A Rose by Any Other Name is a case in which the creator themself stepped in and confirmed they were intending it to be a "real" chapter of the Doctor's life, proving that it indeed passes Rule 4, plus the "Titan backup comics" series this serial was a part of was directly nodded in the main run, and IIRC (although I can't check as our forums are dead) the debate was swinging against it (and the backup comics in general) before those two things were pointed out, so that's entirely consistent with my view on this of "invalid UNLESS DEMONSTRATED OTHERWISE". The Dr. Men Series might not be something many would personally consider canon, but VALID ≠ "canon", and they do for the most part tell fairly reasonable (if somewhat "fluffy") stories behind the Mr. Men aesthetic, which this does not. Knock! Knock! Who's There? is the most direct comparison to this, and indeed the jokes in it aren't considered to be official facts of the Doctor Who Universe, only the framing device (hence why it's dabbed as a novel and not an anthology of short stories), so we can't say, for instance, that there really is an old Martian tradition of marking the anniversary of an individual's birth with a rousing chorus of a song entitled Freeze a Jolly Good Fellow, so that's actually a fairly good case AGAINST the validity of this. Oh, and as for that Yeti comic, the tag seems to be based entirely on me using the word "parody" at one point instead of "pastiche" when describing it. I elaborate on this on the talk page, as well as give other examples. But you may check that page and its own talk page for more on that, since it's rather off topic me bringing it up here, I'll admit that much. NightmareofEden ☎  09:47, 21 September 2021 (UTC)