Script: Dan McDaid Art: Dan McDaid
The Invasion of the Hotel by Noe Geric 7/10/20
Doctor Who was off-air for a year in 2009, except for three special episodes, and there was no regular companion. Doctor Who Magazine decided it was time for them to create a new one to fill that gap. This companion was Majenta Pryce.
Her first story shows her as one of the villains. Of course, she isn't the main villain (another race of aliens takes that role), but she doesn't like the Doctor, and she uses Time Travel in her hotel. With little devices, the customers can travel in time whenever and wherever they want. But they can't do anything; when they travel in time they are ghost that no-one can see. The Doctor isn't really okay with that and decides to stop her. But another race of aliens arrives and begins to kill everybody. The plot is good enough for one episode but doesn't do anything interesting with the hotel situation. Once the aliens arrive, it becomes a small-scale invasion, and it was quite dull. The Doctor's characterization is quite blank. He's a generic Doctor and could be the Fourth, the Fifth or the Twelfth, even if he did look like the Tenth on the drawings.
Majenta is introduced and doesn't do much. She has a brief backstory and quickly tricks the aliens, but that's all. She is finally arrested by the police (and that'll lead into her next story), and the Hotel is closed once the alien menace is stopped. She also has an assistant (who'll come back in another strip), and he too isn't interesting. The script of Hotel Historia is a nice idea, but it doesn't feel has if it was truly exploited; it feels empty. That's the first big flaw. The other is the drawings.
The drawings and the colours are horrible. It looks like a first sketch and not a fully finished artwork. The colours are all over the place like if an 8-year-old did the job. It impacts on the story, as it damaged my retina. Dan McDaid did the script and the drawing; of course, there are a lot of writers who draw their stories. McDaid is a ''good'' writer but not an excellent artist (there are stories with even worse drawings in Majenta's run; McDaid is far better than these), and someone else should've done the script. It works sometimes when the writer does the two jobs, but it's often better when there's an artist working with the writer.
Hotel Historia is a mixed bag. There's a good idea a bit wasted and forgettable characters (apart from the Doctor, two of them will come back later) and the drawings let it down completely. 6/10