I very much wanted to try and bring the same approach to the creation of the show in 1963 as The Long Game did for the 1996-2003 period, The idea is to try and provide the same wider background and context to the events – so not just what happened, but why it happened. To give an idea of how BBC television drama worked at that time, the world into which Doctor Who was born, and also to flesh out some of the lives of people we normally only see as names on a list – the likes of Eric Maschwitz and Alice Frick, for example. Pull to Open tells the story from Maschwitz first asking the Script Department about science-fiction in the spring of 1962, to the Daleks first appearing at the end of 1963 – so it’s a book which pretty much entirely concentrates on the creation of the show. That is the story in this book, rather than simply being the start of the story as it sometimes is when told elsewhere. It’s a period which has long fascinated me, and I hope people enjoy reading about it as much as I have enjoyed researching and writing it!

For the first time ever, an upcoming book, Kklak: the Doctor Who Art of Chris Achilléos, will compile into one volume the entirety of Chris’ artwork for Target. The artwork will be presented chronologically, with accompanying commentary from the artist himself. The book will begin with an exclusive foreword from Achilléos’ long-time friend and collaborator – and the most prolific and popular of all Target’s writers – the late Terrance Dicks.

In many ways, Kklak… is a love letter to the Target range, which was itself a love letter to the Doctor Who fandom. It was Target’s genuine, tangible affection for the universe of Doctor Who that first inspired Candy Jar’s head of publishing, Shaun Russell, to get into the book world. As Shaun explains:
Featuring every one of Achilléos’ Doctor Who designs, as well as never before seen material giving insight into his creative process, Kklak: the Doctor Who Art of Chris Achilléos is released in late spring 2020 by Candy Jar Books.

In his five decades as an illustrator, painter and conceptual artist, Chris Achilléos has four best-selling books of his art, Beauty and the Beast, Syrens, Medusa and Amazona. He worked with the likes of George Lucas, as well as producing the iconic promotional art for the cult film Heavy Metal. But it is probably his work for Doctor Who that is the most enduringly popular.

His covers for the official Target novelisations, which began in the early ‘70s, defined a generation’s image of the Doctor and his adventures – particularly after the show disappeared from British screens in the late ‘80s.

Lavishly detailed, with psychedelic overtones and an unapologetically pulpy sensibility, these covers perfectly captured the eccentric appeal of the classic series. To this day, Doctor Who luminaries tip their hat to the influence of Achilléos’ work. The opening of a 2016 exhibition of Target’s cover artwork at the Cartoon Museum, London, attracted the series’ then-showrunner Steven Moffat, as well as twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi.

With the Doctor long back on our screens, and more popular than ever, it is perhaps surprising that Achilléos’ Whovian oeuvre (or Whoeuvre, if you will) has never been collected in one place.

Kklak: The Doctor Who Art of Chris Achilléos, an upcoming title from award-winning independent publisher Candy Jar Books, aims to address this. For the first time, it collects the entirety of Achilléos’ Doctor Who artwork in chronological order, along with commentary from Achilléos himself (as well as some fans) – presenting the definitive guide to his seminal work. The book also includes a small contribution from twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi and a foreword from Achilléos’ long-time friend and collaborator, the late Terrance Dicks.

Achilléos explains his motivations for compiling the book:


As the home of the Lethbridge-Stewart series, one of only a handful of fully licensed Doctor Who ranges outside of the BBC, Candy Jar was the natural home for Achilléos’ new title. As Candy Jar’s head of publishing, Shaun Russell, explains:


Featuring every one of Achilléos’ Doctor Who designs, as well as never before seen material giving insight into his creative process, Kklak: the Doctor Who Art of Chris Achilléos is released in April 2020 by Candy Jar Books.

Imagine Doctor Who as a tree trunk that keeps growing taller and taller, fed by roots that reach down into history, mythology, psychology, folktales, religion, science and the wealth of science fiction that exists in the world. It’s not surprising therefore to find that Doctor Who connects with a lot of other stuff.

Peter has been a fan of Doctor Who since day one and his take on the Whoniverse offers a personal outlook on growing up with the series. His childhood love of robots coincided with the introduction of the Daleks and, despite the Daleks not really being robots, their cries of exterminate cemented his love for all things Doctor Who.

In my book I have enjoyed making the connections between Doctor Who and real-life computers, robots and cyborgs. These connections run deep into culture, history and science. It is my hope that fans will not only enjoy reading my book, but begin to connect the dots themselves.

We had already released Mark’s Space, Time, Machine, Monster book based on science fiction in general. It seemed a natural progression to concentrate on Doctor Who. It was also great to welcome Jon Chase to the fold. His credentials are second-to-none; having worked on the BBC Bitesize Science TV series.

Doctor Who was originally created to teach history and science. Even though the show has changed, I feel fundamentally that the Doctor’s adventures have something to teach us about our own world. My mission was to explore concepts from the series and see how they feature in our everyday lives.