Dan McDaid

Dan McDaid is a British comic writer, penciller, inker and colourist. Although he did some earlier work as an illustrator, his professional comic book debut was in Doctor Who Magazine.

Overview of Doctor Who work
In 2007 he became professionally engaged in Doctor Who comic art by providing illustrations for a Gareth Roberts story, "The Body Bank" in Panini's 2008 Doctor Who Storybook. From there, his services were engaged by the parent Panini publication, Doctor Who Magazine. He was added to the line-up of revolving artists between Series 3 and Series 4. Initially, he was paid as a writer for his story, "The First". In issue #394, he made his professional debut as a comic book artist. Despite having never been paid to draw a comic strip, he was effectively the sole creator of "Hotel Historia". This work was unusual on many levels. It was the first time in DWM history a single person had written, drawn and coloured a story. Moreover, as originally intended, the story was the first truly companion-less story of the RTD era and the first in DWM since the Eighth Doctor's era. By virtue of this story, McDaid was also likely the first penciller to debut in DWM, and probably the first to do so in any regularly published Doctor Who comics.

Since "Historia", McDaid has illustrated several comic stories in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine. Starting with the 400th issue of the magazine, he became the de-facto head writer of Doctor Who Magazine comics for an 18 month period. He resurrected Majenta and turned her into the first multi-story comics-only companion since the BBC Wales programme began. She became an important part of the narrative arc after the departure of Donna Noble. McDaid has since written "Thinktwice", "The Stockbridge Child", "Mortal Beloved" and "The Age of Ice".

Style
McDaid's art is strikingly different than most other artists working for DWM. It is deliberately representative, rather than realistic. His work is evocative of several artists he claims to have been influenced by, like John Romita, Jr. and Grant Morrison. He describes himself as having a "man-crush on Darwyn Cooke" — something immediately obvious on comparison of his work to Cooke's definitive The New Frontier.

Opinions on other Doctor Who artists
He calls the original Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons/Pat Mills/John Wagner run of Fourth and Fifth Doctor stories "seriously mad" and "mind-blowing". He's also noted the commonality between those comic strips and the RTD era of Doctor Who, noting that after Steve Parkhouse came in to DWM: "... the strips get more otherworldly and oblique, taking Who into territory where the TV show would never go. That was twenty years ago of course — these days, the TV show is practically a spin-off of those comic strips. And more power to it, I say."

- Dan McDaid

However, he seems to have been most influenced by Scott Gray's Eighth Doctor run, which he claims are his bible for "how to write Who — and particularly Who comics."