Fifty Years in Time and Space 7: Doctor Who Artist profile

Sci-Fi  shows often recycle stories and ideas from each other, so when BBC Audio asked award winning artist, Tony Masero for a cover for a number of their new releases it is fitting that Tony used a few of his old Star Trek images and recycled them to become the stunning Doctor Who art posted here.

Over the years Tony's done a lot of work for the BBC and drawn covers for Doctor Who many times - find  examples at his own website HERE. In regards to Doctor Who fiction Tony's drawn many cover for not only the Target covers of old but also the ground breaking New Adventures series.


" Mainly, of the the ten paperback covers I did for WH Allen under the Target Books imprint most were of the original William Hartnell Doctor (+ one of Jon Pertwee) and for the later Virgin New Adventures it was Sylvester McCoy, the rest of them were mainly made up of the various monsters and aliens rather than using a Doctor on the front. There were a couple of hardback coffee table Dr. Who collection specials I also did in between for WH Allen." Tony Masero


For the cover art of the original Doctor Who books Tony found himself working from a basic sketch supplied by the book publishers.

"For the original book covers it was a pencil rough made up using the rather sad reference that the publisher supplied.The BBC Audio disks are using the old cover art so in that instance they just transferred the artwork with a little use of Photoshop as they appeared originally. The 'Vervoid' one was an exception where I created new artwork for this. As I've sold off most of the original artwork (or its vanished along the way) it's sometimes hard to find original art but the guy at the BBC art studio does magic with the cover art and I presume he uses old printed covers and tarts them up a bit to fit the different format."

So given Tony's long association with Doctor Who I wondered if he had a favourite amongst all the incarnations of the time lord?

" I'm old school (70 this November) so I remember when it all started and avidly watched the show from the first. But then came girls, leading to marriage, kids and an Illustration career so now not at all. I liked the original format of the TV show often having some kind of educational or historical input. As one of a generation who grew up devoted to the brilliant Eagle comic where there was always something of interest other than pure fantasy the original black and white series was somewhat in that vein."

Tony's currently a jobbing artist- he provided the covers for my Vincent Stark books as well as creating the Granny Smith silhouette image that graces my books. Anyone wanting an original cover drawn for their eBooks can find Tony's contact details in the Archive's sidebar or via his own website HERE