User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-197.83.246.23-20200731124444/@comment-197.83.246.23-20200731190707

However, another issue is : Do we accept that the illustration accurately portrays the character in said story? In addition to Birth of a Renegade (short story), there are other issues. For instance, in Nemesis of the Daleks (comic story), the Seventh Doctor appears. Looking like this. Or in the text story The Sinister Sponge (short story) there is an illustration looking like this. The text tells us that the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan all appear in this story. So, from the narrative, this is a Fourth Doctor/Sarah Jane Smith/Harry Sullivan story. But nobody would accept that the three leads look the way the illustration depicts them. Another problem(of many) is the infamous cover of Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion (novelisation). Does that illustration mean that the dinosaurs all made that sound? Or that the Doctor was in black-and-white, while the dinosaurs were in colour?

Thus, covers are just that. I do not believe they just influence the way we "see" the text at all.

In addition, some actual illustrations are clearly "wrong". Even though they were the ones published, it opens up a whole lot of problems if that was what the Season 12 TARDIS crew actually looked like in The Sinister Sponge (short story).