For those of you not familiar with Terry Nation’s ‘Dalek Chronicles’, they were a comic strip which ran from 23rd January 1965 weekly in 21st Century magazine, every Wednesday. They ran for a hundred and four  instalments, six instalments to a story, except for the first which had only three. They documented a totally contradictory, but equally interesting means of the Dalek’s creation, compared to that presented in ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. They begin with the conclusion of the war with the Thals, (which is not the same as that presented in the first Dalek Doctor Who Story, but happens many millions of years before) the Mutants/Daleks and documents the formation of their empire up until their attempted invasion of Earth.

These comic strips were also re-released in a one-magazine edition in Doctor Who Magazine in 1994

In recent months, The Dalek Chronicles have been made available in a new 3D digital format, available on VCD through the Doctor Who Fan Network.

The chronicles are in a format which takes some getting used to. They are created from 3d rendered stills, Truespace 3D animations, and 2D Flash animations, using the 3D rendered skills. What this means is that the ‘Chronicles’ swap between moving footage and stills, which can be quite disconcerting at first, as it means that there is no lip-synching for the humanoid characters, so it has a feeling rather like a recon. As a point of interest, the creator of these Dalek Chronicles (Stuart Palmer) is the same animator who also provided the 3D Daleks for the excellent Loose Cannon reconstruction of ‘The Dalek’s Master Plan’, and the 3D helicopter and oil rig animations for the ‘Fury from the Deep’ recon.

All the Chronicles are voiced by volunteer amateur actors, each of whom records their part on their own computer, and are sent to be compiled. The vocal acting is excellent, and varied. And the sound is good. More info about the people involved can be found at the Altered Vista’s website ( http://www.alteredvistas.co.uk).