Tim Hamilton (1) (1966–)

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-ripper-by-tony-lee-et-al/

this unites a one-shot, where Rory’s spam emails come alive in the Tardis,with a three-parter, where the Doctor, Amy and Rory get mixed up with the police investigation of Jack the Ripper. It’s a bit dubious, frankly, to adapt the very real femicidal atrocities of the Ripper murders for a Doctor Who story and to make an anthropophagic alien the secret killer. Doctor Who doesn’t go to the Holocaust, or even Ireland much, and show more this isn’t so very different.

But Tony Lee (as usual) captures the characters well, and the first bit with living spam emails is sheer fun; and the Ripper story is superbly illustrated by the art of Tim Hamilton, who I don’t think I had otherwise come across, but I shall definitely look out for now. show less

Rory is added to the mix in this next installment of IDW's Doctor Who comics, which sees the ubiquitous Tony Lee back on writing duties. The first story here, the one issue "Spam Filtered" (art by Andrew Currie) is good fun, as the TARDIS is overrun by banner ads and spam e-mails when Rory links his smartphone into its systems. Lee captures the voices of the main cast perfectly, and the story is the kind of delightful thing that really shows off what Doctor Who can be in the comic book show more medium.

Less successful is "Ripper's Curse" (art by Richard Piers Rayner, Horacio Domingues, and Tim Hamilton), which just never engages; it's all a bit too rote. I did like the bit where the Doctor and Rory figure out where the Ripper's next victim is by hopping forward and asking a tour guide, but Doctor Who already has too many boring takes on Jack the Ripper, and this is just one more; I've never gotten the fascination. show less

Most novels which have been adapted into graphic novels tend to leave one slightly wanting, but this one made an admirable (and more successful) attempt compared to most. From the tone of the introduction, Bradbury had a strong guiding hand during its creation, so the story still sounds distinctly like him. Obviously some of the detail and complexity did not manage to make the translation, but our fireman is still a confused and jarring character within an artificially adapted world. I show more wasn't 100% on board with Tim Hamilton's artwork, since hte novel almost demands a stark minimalism, both from the forced simplicity of the tv-dominated life Guy lives and the film noire-esquce capers of his desperate escape, but he does do a great job overall from a traditional comic book viewpoint. It would be nice if the graphic novel companies actually bothered to invest in both their artists and writers, though, so that the two could create more atuned pieces of literature. show less

I read the book by Ray Bradbury years ago. This adaptation that I found in a graphic novel is fabulous. In a darkly beautiful way that follows the original text, I finally have an image that brings to life everything I imagined nearly 20 years ago when I read the book for the first time.