An Interview With Dan Watters And Kelsey Ramsay On The Fifteenth Doctor’s Titan Comics Debut

Given that there’s a new Doctor and companion on TV, it was only a matter of time before they appeared in comics, and writer Dan Watters and artist Kelsey Ramsay are making that happen with Titan Comics’ Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor. With colors by Valentina Bianconi and letters by Comicraft, find out what Ncuti Gatwa‘s Doctor and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) will be going up against in the following interview with Watters and Ramsay:

Rachel Bellwoar: Who was your first Doctor and are there any Doctors or companions you’d love to write for or draw next?

Dan Watters: It was Christopher Eccleston for me. I was right about the right age for the revamp of the show to capture me fully. It’s funny when you look back now, he was quite a harsh, crabby Doctor at times, which I don’t think registered as much at the time. Twelve has that to him too. There’s something chilling to the Doctor’s anger, but when they’re just being a bit of a sod there’s nothing more entertaining.

Kelsey Ramsay: My first Doctor might have been David Tennant. He has such an animated face so I’d probably have a lot of fun drawing his wide eye realisations!

Bellwoar: By the time this issue out comes the new season of Doctor Who will have already started, but that wasn’t the case when you were working on this series. Were you given any early access to episodes or was it really about building off of Ncuti Gatwa’s first appearances in “The Giggle” and the Christmas special?

Ramsay: A little bit of both. But mostly I was given a good amount of reference from the BBC, very helpful close ups of the TARDIS and its console. I got a good look at what the Doctor is always interacting with when he’s expertly twisting, pushing, pulling all those buttons! Although sadly, I’ll never know what they actually do.

Watters: The BBC were generous with materials. I had access to scripts and stills, and they really provided me with as much as they could to help me capture the voice of the incoming Doctor. Obviously it was all written in invisible ink and set to self-destruct after reading, but I understand you can’t be too careful with these things.

Bellwoar: In the Free Comic Book Day issue the Doctor runs into Dick Turpin, who’s having his own TV moment right now on Apple TV+’s The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin. Were you aware of that series when you decided to have the Doctor cross paths with him?

Watters: I was not! I was listening to Adam and the Ants, which gave me the idea. I suspect the creators of that show might have been listening to them too, from what I’ve seen.

Bellwoar: The solicitation text for the first issue mentions that the Doctor and Ruby are going to be spending time at the mall. How did you come up with your vision for what malls of the future will look like?

Watters: I mean, they haven’t changed all that much ever, have they? Really the interest there came from the idea that a mall is a machine designed to extract as much money as possible from the visitor by providing for as much human want and need as they can possibly cram into a building. So, it stood to reason that by the time humanity has to flee Earth, the mall might be the only safe place left.

Ramsay: I borrowed some inspiration from artist Syd Mead in envisioning a futuristic shopping centre — clean shapes and silhouettes I especially used when thinking about the exterior.

Bellwoar: The solicitation text for the second issue mentions the Cybermen. Of their many different iterations, do you have a favorite look or era for the Cybermen?

Watters: I’m partial to the original. The more lopsided the better. It’s great when they have an element of the uncanny valley to them; reminding us that these aren’t just robots. They’re what humanity has turned into as a result of taking body mod way too far.

Ramsay: I think all the variations have their own kind of chilling charm I enjoy, but I think I have to agree with Dan, the original really captures a human/robot blend with a special kind of eccentricity.

Bellwoar: Does the Doctor being an active character make him harder to capture on the page?

Ramsay: Yes and no! Referencing someone’s face is always a little challenging when trying to nail the likeness and expression. But having it there as a foundation to start and go back to doesn’t hurt at all.

Watters: No, it’s a gift. He really springs around a story by his own will, poking and prodding everything to get a reaction, which is really what you want in a protagonist. The only challenge can be trying to capture his verboseness on the comics page without generating giant balloons which blot out the art and become a chore to read. It’s a balancing act.

Bellwoar: The Free Comic Book Day issue included a sneak peek at this series’ antagonist. Is there anything you can tell us about them and/or their hobby of collecting screams?

Watters: Well, we’ve seen the Toymaker and Maestro now, and are well aware there are other things out there from outside time and space, refusing to adhere to the laws of logic and science they’ve found in our rinky dink little universe. The Scream Sommelier is one of them, and he’s a particularly nasty piece of work. I’ve enjoyed finding ways to utilize those elements on the comics page. The Sommelier doesn’t necessarily feel the need to adhere to comic book structure either.

Bellwoar: It seems like fear is going to be a running theme in this series. How did you decide which places to include in the Doctor’s walk down (bad) memory lane in the FCBD issue?

Watters: There was definitely some discussion about it. The Doctor has encountered a plethora of truly horrific events on their sojourns through space and time. Really I just wanted to hit key moments of hopelessness. I think that’s the worst thing to the Doctor. To try and try and try, to persevere through sheer will and optimism, and still have miserable, awful things come to pass. It’s the worst thing to most of us, I reckon.

Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Dan and Kelsey!

Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor #1 goes on sale June 26th from Titan Comics.