Doctor Who Weekly (1979-80)
Doctor Who Magazine is the world's longest running magazine based on a television series. It offers Doctor Who news, reviews, articles and comic stories. There are also occasional standalone publications. The magazine was born as Doctor Who Weekly, published by the UK branch of Marvel Comics in mid-October 1979. The first issue arrived on newsstands midway through broadcast of City of Death, and Tom Baker spent some time promoting it while in the midst of production of the ultimately cancelled Shada. At this time, a weekly magazine was still a popular format in the United Kingdom. Doctor Who Weekly's initial cover price was 12 pence.[1]
| The magazine began under the editorship of Dez Skinn. Skinn was editorial director of Marvel Comics' UK division and had been hired to expand the company. He had been trying to launch a Doctor Who title alongside his House of Hammer and Starburst lines for over three years but could not get the BBC license because of an existing single page Doctor Who comic strip in TV Comic. Skinn made the initial announcement of the pending launch at the August 1979 Doctor Who convention before a September promotional tour which included the 1979 Worldcon SF convention at Brighton alongside Tom Baker as well as various retail and wholesale meetings to promote the first issue to the trade.[2] The image on the right was mock-up of the potential first issue of Doctor Who Weekly presented to the BBC by Skinn. Since becoming a notable piece of Doctor Who history, Skinn has often brought the issue to conventions and has allowed limited-edition recreations to be sold.[3] |  |
1979 |  #1 |  #2 |  #3 |  #4 |
 #5 |  #6 |  #7 |  #8 |  #9 |
 #10 |  #11 | 1980 |  #12 |  #13 |
 #14 |  #15 |  #16 |  #17 |  #18 |
 #19 |  #20 |  #21 |  #22 |  #23 |
 #24 |  #25 |  #26 |  #27 |  #28 |
 #29 |  #30 |  #31 |  #32 |  #33 |
 Summer 1980 |  #34 |  #35 |  #36 |  #37 |
 #38 |  #39 |  #40 |  #41 |  #42 |
 #43 |
| From issue 44, Doctor Who magazine became Doctor Who - A Marvel Monthly, a change made to increase sales per issue, making the title more economically viable. The picture to the right is what issue 44 would have looked like if it remained a weekly publication.[4] |  |
