https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/a-matter-of-life-and-death-by-george-mann-emma-v...

Continuing my journey through my substantial backlog of Doctor Who comics, I’m now at this Eighth Doctor collection from 2016. I have generally rated George Mann poorly as a writer, and so I am glad to say that I really enjoyed these five linked stories, in which the Eighth Doctor finds a young artist squatting in his country house and takes her on a series of adventures. The third, in which sinister entities emerge from mirrors, is particularly good.

My one complaint is that artist Emma Vieceli’s depiction of the Eighth Doctor doesn’t look a lot like Paul McGann. (The cover is by someone else, I think.) But otherwise this came as a pleasant surprise and I will give George Mann’s work at least a second glance in future. ( )

The first (and so far only) volume of Titan's eighth Doctor range is another slice of perfectly adequate Doctor Who comics from Titan. George Mann has written worse stuff, and Emma Vieceli proves excellent on the artwork. A lot of the plots were decent Doctor Who ideas, but rushed or poorly implemented. Art comes to life in the first story, but so quickly we barely see its effects; in the second story we're asked to believe the best match for a race of living crystal is a race of sentient cats; the idea of a weird dimensional portal in the third seems over before it's even used; and so on. Titan's Eleventh Doctor series has done done-in-one tales much more successfully. On the other hand, I liked Mann's emphasis on the Doctor as a man trying to find peace in conflict, and Vieceli brings both Doctor and companion to life in a way utterly suited to the bouncing, emotional eighth Doctor. If there are more eighth Doctor comics (seems unlikely), get someone else to write them, but bring her back.

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