GS: You have chosen the eighth Doctor and the tenth. Why was this? AB: There is a very simple reason that will become clear around issue four… SD: … And I can’t wait to draw it! GS: Was it difficult to both get the eighth doctor’s voice and to draw his different mannerisms after all we only got one movie where we learnt he loved new shoes and not much else? AB: That was part of the fun behind writing for the Eighth Doctor. Not the shoes – though they have their moment as well – but the challenge of creating a voice for him. The TV movie is, at best, questionable, but I found McGann instantly engaging and began thinking about what he could be, rather than what he was there. Everyone has their Doctor, the one they think about when they think of the role, and Eight became my Doctor, because there was essentially a blank slate for him and he could become anything I wanted.
SD: For my part, drawing the Eighth Doctor was a bit of a challenge! I must have printscreened every expression from the Movie to use as reference, gathered as many Google images I could find and photographed every detail of the Eighth Doctor’s costume at the Doctor Who Exhibition! I’ve used likenesses of actors for characters in previous comics but this is different, the Eighth Doctor needs to look like Paul McGann. This is also the longest comic I’ve illustrated to date (the others being only around six pages) so I had to not only make the Doctor look like McGann, but carry that likeness through twenty-two pages (and that’s only the first issue!) I think I got the hang of him in the end though! AB: It was important to me that the characters resemble the actors, as I feel many modern Doctor Who comics fall apart over the art not capturing the unique touches that the actors bring the characters. I am very happy with the likeness of the Eighth Doctor Sara got.
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it began to feel like an episode was playing out in my mind, where there was constraint to limit the lines so they could fit in a panel! SD: Oddly enough David Tennant’s likeness comes easier to me than Paul McGann’s, so grasping the Tenth Doctor’s look and mannerisms was slightly less challenging. I think it must be as Alex says; Ten has his trademark expressions that once captured characterize him perfectly, though I still gathered as much reference as I could find (which, lets be honest, wasn’t a chore!). However I found a certain formula for Ten that meant if you can get his hair, sideburns and the shape of his face right, everything else just falls into place! GS: The Titanic is a key part of the story. What kind of research did you both have to do? AB: We both had to immerse ourselves in the ship completely. I’ve always been intrigued by Titanic’s story, ever since seeing the Cameron film in 1997, and when I first planned Impossible Crossing I enjoyed studying the books, the survivor’s accounts, and the other films made. Despite our story being heavily fictitious, I wanted to keep Titanic’s story as real as possible and there are characters that appear that were real people, and dialogue spoken that is reported to have really been said. I found the blueprints to the ship online and poured over them, working out which route the Doctor might take to get here, or where he would land the TARDIS, or which decks belonged to which class
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GS: Reading the first six pages I thought it was amazing how you had managed to grasp the tenth doctor’s mannerisms in both speech and look. Was this a difficult process or something that flowed quite easily? AB: Script wise, it was incredibly easy, since the Tenth Doctor was very expressive and built on catchphrases. I actually found it very easy writing for both Ten and Eight because I could really hear the actors’ voices say the lines, to the point where I would sometimes write too much because