Growing up in the Seventies we only got
to see each episode of Doctor Who once (or maybe twice if it was repeated)
so the Target novelisations were our equivalent of how you can now watch any existing
episode whenever you want. Crucial to those books were the covers especially the
earlier ones which were the work of Chris Achilleos who sadly died this week.
His artwork created a heightened, stylised version of Doctor Who with a
grander and more exciting visual aesthetic than the reality of the series. Yet he
was also able to home in on the elements that made each story tick. Finding a
new book and a new cover was like discovering new treasure and those covers
somehow became synonymous with the stories they depicted.
