The covers for TV Comic featured some combination of the title of the magazine, elements included inside the issue, the publishing dates of said issue, and the issue number itself. The printing of Doctor Who lasted across 756 non-consecutive issues, totally almost 15 years of coverage.
The following sub-sections have galleries illustrating the changes in font and format that the TV Comic covers went through. Unless noted otherwise, certain gaps in this page's catalogue are caused by the scarcity of quality images of some of the covers.
Covers and issues[]
First Doctor[]
At the time of Doctor Who's introduction to the magazine in 1964, the common tactic for the magazine was to feature a popular strip on the bottom half of the page (usually Popeye), and a banner briefly advertising other stories included inside. These often would mention Doctor Who. Because of the lack of a need of Popeye content on this wiki, these galleries will mainly function to cover the top banner of the issue.
Second Doctor[]
The very first story of the Second Doctor's comic era continued the previous trend of a brief banner over a non-DWU comic.
After this story, Doctor Who itself took over the magazine's first page. In these cases, the first panel of said story would serve as the cover instead of a banner.
However, the magazine soon returned to the previous status-quo.
Third Doctor[]
After the Second Doctor regenerated at the end of COMIC: The Night Walkers, a two-month gap occurred where no Doctor Who content was featured in TV Comic. This started after TVC 936 and ended with the publication of TVC 944.
Issue 999 was the final TVC issue to feature Doctor Who material up until 1973; during this time stories were instead printed in TV Action. Issues to feature DWU material would continue in TVC 1133.
Fourth Doctor[]
Initial issues featuring Fourth Doctor fiction features covers to form with previously noted instances.
After issue 1291, TV Comic transitioned into Mighty TV Comic, with the adjective "NEW" added to initial publications. Alongside a thicker volume, the rejuvenated Mighty TV Comic featured a cover more common with modern publications.
Starting with issue 1323, Mighty TV Comic returned to the previous standard of a simple banner printed on the top of one of its regular strips. However, shortly after this the magazine also began to include additional non-comic information on a side-panel, creating a merge of a regular cover and a preview of the comics inside.
While technically not relevant relevant to the covers of the magazine, it should be noted that TVC 1385 was the final issue to feature original content. All issues after the fact contained slightly-altered reprints, retracing Tom Baker's (vague) likeness over previous Doctor Who comics. Mighty TV Comic soon returned to the original title of TV Comic.
Issue 1430 was the final TV Comic variation to feature any licensed elements from the DWU. Issue 1 of Doctor Who Weekly would begin printing five months later. A similar comprehensive organisation of that publication can be found here.