Doctor Who annual

Doctor Who Annuals / Yearbooks

 * Published from the late 1960's through to the late 1980's (with the exception of 1972),by World Distributors Ltd, the Doctor Who Annual was a hardbound book priced at pocket money prices and released around Autumn, in time for the Christmas market. Usually a mix of prose and comic strip stories, they also contained puzzles, quizzes, games and a varying amount of filler material usually not who-related. When John Nathan-Turner became producer of `Doctor Who` he exerted a greater influence over all merchandising and tie-in product releases (including the Annuals),which under his watchful eye saw an increase in standards as well as featuring more television series related features.


 * It is perhaps worth noting that with an autumn of the year release time, the date on all annuals is for the following year. (For example The K-9 Annual dated 1983, has a print date of 1982). Some annuals/yearbooks failed to include a year date on the cover so where applicable that reference is bracketed and assumed.


 * World Distributors Ltd stopped producing the regular annuals in 1986, a bumper volume followed featuring the best of previous editions and was the last title to be released.


 * There was a lapse in publication for a few years of the annuals before Marvel Comics secured the license to produce a Doctor Who Yearbook, which followed the same mix of prose, comic strip stories and features, this time all who-related. The Yearbooks ran from 1992-1996.


 * In recent years, since Doctor Who was re-visioned, the Annual format has been redesigned with fiction being given its own title The Doctor Who Storybook and the Annual assuming a hardback activity book for younger viewers.

Dalek Annuals

 * The Dalek Annuals (also published by World Distributors) were released as separate volumes to the Doctor Who Annuals because the copyright to use the Daleks belongs to Terry Nation (writer) who was at the time looking to launch the Daleks in their own series of adventures in the US. Some earlier Dalek Annual-type books were published in the 1960s (from 1964 to 1966, the last one featuring Doctor Who TV series character Sara Kingdom as well as an unrelated SF comic strip reprint.) These three 1960s Dalek "Annuals" were published by Souvenir Press Ltd, and are shown in the "Related and Other Annuals" cover images section below.

K-9 Annuals

 * The K-9 Annual 1983 was a one-off Annual launched in anticipation of a new series of television adventures for the Doctors mechanical companion following the spin-off K-9 and Company. The series was never realised.

TV Comic Annuals

 * Worthy of note because previous to Doctor Who Magazine running a regular comic strip story, TV Comic (and various related titles) ran a regular strip. It was customary for popular comics at the time to produce, as well as a regular bumper-issue Holiday special(released in the summer months), an annual hardback (in time for Christmas).As Doctor Who was a major long-running feature of the comic it followed that it should be represented in the Annual.

Related and Other Annuals
This bit still to be tidied up