ComicMix Radio: Steven Moffat On Taking Command Of Doctor Who

Even for an established and award winning television writer like Steven Moffat, taking command of a 45 year old universe is a little daunting. In the first part of our exclusive ComicMix interviews with the top BBC talents, he tells us his outlook for the future, plus:

• Dave Gibbons shares his reaction to seeing The Watchmen come to life
• The creator of Scream turns to comics
• What is was like to camp out under the full moon last night waiting for Breaking Dawn

No spoilers here – really  just Press the Button! And remember, you can always subscribe to ComicMix Radio podcasts via or RSS!    

Transcript

Broadcast 241. ComicMix.com. He's the new mayor of Whoville. ComicMix Rio. Hi, it's Mike Raub. So what's it like for Stephen Motha when he steps into the universe of Doctor Who as the guy in charge of it all?

We'll answer that question and more coming up on August 2nd. 2008 ComicMix News. Since a release in 2005 of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, the books in the series have spent a combined 143 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. But that is just about to change. The new book in the series was released last night at midnight and thousands crowded in front of their favorite bookstore.

All wearing little red bracelets have proved that they were smart enough to pre-order the book for a good reason. Well, if you pre-ordered it, you would get these. So you would go in front of all these other girls who are just like going there to buy it. A lot of the people we talked to said once they got their hands on a copy of Breaking Dawn, the plan was to go home and stay up until they finished the entire book. And to definitely stay off the internet. Definitely.

Probably. For sure. Yeah. I have not been on line for like the past day. I couldn't want any spoilers. Well, if you're reading Rand Thanigarh War, you know that after issue number three, things don't look too good for Hawkman. However, there's going to be a turnaround in his future in Hawkman special number one done by Jim Starlin.

And all the way not too far from right now from D.C. The special issue bridges the gap between the Rand Thanigarh Holy War issues three and four. And it's Starlin's first chance to do a solo Hawkman. If you haven't done already, take a little time this weekend and those around the Internet and see the release of the seven Watchmen character posters that were unveiled a few days ago at Comic Con. Of course, it's the collaboration between director Zack Snyder and Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons as they create the original DC 1986 House ads with new photos included.

Nobody's happier about the way things are going, by the way, than Dave Gibbons himself, who actually had a chance to go to the set and see his creations live. Well, I think at any moment I expected that I was going to be impeached and I was going to wake up. You know, I mean, it's it's just the stuff of dreams, really, to have something step out of your head and become real. And to be in the midst of it, I mean, what really did it for me was the owl shit, to stand inside the owl shit that had first existed. It's just some pencil scribbles and to smell this, the comedian's cigar, you know, to have the comedian slap me on the back and proudly show me one of his guns, you know, was just amazing.

Yeah, I was I was completely thrilled. It all went by too quickly. It was like being a kid at Christmas. It all just happened. And I just wanted it to go on. We'll get to share in Dave's excitement coming March next year. Nickelodeon is on the hunt for serious gamers with Avatar Legends of the Arena. It's an upcoming global online multiplayer game that serves as a prequel to the animated feature Avatar The Last Airbender. It's a 3D online arena game that takes place simultaneously in 81 markets and 10 different languages.

It's been tested and tried and now Nickelodeon is going to offer fans hints to the game. They tune in to episodes of the show Friday nights on Nickelodeon during September and October. Devil's Dew has announced a handful of relationships that will expand their publishing titles, beginning with plans to reprint and translate popular titles from the European publisher Humanoids. They'll start out with the I Am Legion series that has art by hot artist John Cassidy and from there they'll go on with other titles in the near future. They're also involved in bringing some of the Capcom properties to comics including Bionic Commando, Monster Hunter and Dark Void, and Kevin Williamson, the creator of Scream and Dawson's Creek, is writing a book for Devil's Dew with a crime thriller called Shadows and it's set to be in stores in spring next year.

It was touted as the 51st issue of Invincible and had apparently worked and is sold completely out from image. There's an Invincible number 51 second printing on the way which will be in stores in a couple of weeks. By the way this is a great time to jump on the series as it's being kick started with a fresh new look and the second printing of Invincible number 51. We'll have a different cover paying homage to the issue that started it all, Invincible number one. Speaking of sell out books, the Archangel storyline did his job and X-Force number five is sold out.

There's a second printing variant on the way coming in a couple of weeks from Marvel. Hi, I'm Peter David from The Dark Tower and this is ComicMix. ComicMix Radio! ComicMix Radio! Steven Moffat is no stranger to writing television. He's created and written many award-winning shows in the UK including Couplings.

In the world of Doctor Who, Moffat has written many of the series best episodes including Blink, Girl in the Fireplace and Silence in the Library. Now beginning with the 2010 series, Moffat replaces Russell T. Davies as head writer for the show that could command over 50% of the British TV viewers to turn on their sets on any given Saturday night. And Moffat has a plan. 45 minutes of a fantastic fun and adventure every Saturday for 13 weeks. Serious? Well mostly, Moffat feels that this is a job that a lot of people just might overthink.

I mean really, I mean you can complicate the ambitions of a show like this or the intention of a show like this, but really it's about terrific stories. Doctor Who doesn't change with every new executive producer as they've been demonstrated in the past. It doesn't even necessarily change with every star. It changes with every single episode. Every single episode of Doctor Who is different. So you don't have an overall strategy or a particular ambition for the series. He's wrong. You want it to be the best murder mystery ever one week and the best horror movie the next and the best comedy the next.

So he doesn't have one line of approach. His charm is it has, well actually, about 14 a year. Still having the keys to a 45-year-old franchise doesn't come without some thrill. In this particular case, it's not terribly different because I know the 45-year universe, forgive me, so incredibly well. I think recently I found myself unable to remember an episode of the title of a couple of episodes of Cappling, which I wrote all of. And I had to look it up on the internet and I still didn't recognise them.

But the truth is I could probably do the titles of Doctor Who from the beginning. So because I know it so incredibly well, it doesn't have the impact of it as if I was some brand new neophyte who had to learn all that. I know it all. So it's not… it doesn't feel that different. And I kind of feel part of it already. So it's okay. We'll talk more to Stephen about who and his work on next season's Torchwood as well. And you'll meet executive producer Julie Gardner as well. It's all coming up exclusively here on ComicMix.

ComicMix. Timeline. August 2nd. DC was still experimenting with those $1 titles this week. We got Brave and Bold number 144, Superman number 239. More weird stuff than Unexpected number 188 and Weird War Tales number 69. Adventure Comics was a buck at issue number 460. We also got Ghost number 70, Sergeant Rock number 322, and a DC Special Series edition. Featuring the return of Jonah Hex. Over at Marvel there were lots of returns in invaders number 33.

We also got Avengers number 176, Amazing Spider-Man was at number 185. What If was at number 11 and we got some nice reprints in Marvel Super Heroes number 75. In the news, Republican Philip Crane was the first to toss his hat in the ring for the 1980 presidential election. A proposal for a nationwide system of no-fault car insurance was defeated in Congress. And Cincinnati Reds Pete Rose saw his 44 game hitting streak come to an end at the hands of the Atlanta Braves.

In the movies, Disney had the cat from outer space, there was the driver, Chevy and Goldie in foul play, Warren in Heaven can wait, and the musical that just won't go away. Love it or hate it, it's still a movie icon even today. It was Grease. TV Tonight had the cops rule the airwaves with Charlie's Angels, Police Woman and Starsky and Hutch. It was time for some comedy with Carol Burnett and some family time with Aida Zanucki. 1978

On the radio was a band that was formed in the early 1970s by a group of U.S. servicemen stationed in Germany. The group went through a lot of changes in personnel and even some personal tragedy as well, but they managed to have one of the biggest albums of the decade with Too Hot to Handle in 1976. This was from their second album right to the top of the charts again for the group, Heat Wave. Here's Groove Line. In the beginning of the week as we tackle a couple of different things, including the question of with so many dark and dark and tragic heroes in comics, is there room for the return of the greatest American hero? The original cast of the show sure think so and we'll let them tell you exactly why right here.

Plus more with Steven Moffat and we're joined by Julie Gardner from the BBC as we continue our exclusive look at the future of Doctor Who and the franchise that includes Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures. Don't miss any of that or more. All you have to do is subscribe to us on iTunes. Plus there's plenty of updates every little bit on ComicMix.com and you don't have to miss those either. You can get an alert as to what's going on on Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. Free comics, you know we got them, including Mike Baron's Black Ice, Dick Giordano and Frank McLaughlin doing White Viper and the amazing Mike Oeming and Mark Wheatley on Hammer Of The Gods. And they're all free updated daily right here at ComicMix. Talk to you in a couple of days. Bye.