Photo-cover time!
Nine of the first ten Davison novelisations switch to photographs for their covers with the next two then featuring a photographic Doctor beaming from behind the logo even though the covers have switched back from art.
This all started with Doctor Who and the Visitation, which had had an art cover commissioned from and delivered by David McAllister and the commonly told tale, at least by Based on the Popular BBC Television Serial (ed. Paul Mc Smith; p.180) and About Time 5 (Lawrence Miles & Tat Wood; p.144), is that complaints about Davison's likeness, whether by his agent or by himself, led to that being dropped, a photo-cover being substituted and a new look being born.
Interviewed by The Target Book W H Allen's managing director remembers differently. He 'does not recall the dispute over the artwork' (David J Howe, The Target Book; p.74) but instead says the photographs were to tie in with the new Doctor - Howe calls it 'a new image for the Davison books, just as the TV series was trying a new image for the Doctor' (ibid.).
Soon, Tanner states, '"the agents and the artistes"' started requesting '"a royalty for us to use the photograph, as well as a lump sum and also a royalty on sales of the book"' (ibid.), and Howe sums up that 'photographic covers gave way to artwork images once more, for the very reason that artwork rather than photographs had been used when the range first started' (ibid.), namely it was cheaper.
Which just leaves the questions of why they commissioned David McAllister and where the story about Davison/ Davison's agent came from.
On the latter, I might have an idea. In 1984, after Target had reverted to artwork for their covers, Equity took up a complaint that 'actors were not getting any payment when artwork of them was used' (ibid.; p.88) and the BBC responded with new guidelines which, to briefen a long story, made the fee for using likenesses of actors subject to negotiation where before Target had sent out a standard fee (ibid.; pp.88-9).
In the wake of all this, Peter Davison became Colin Baker, and Baker's agent wrote to W H Allen asking what the payment was for Colin's likeness appearing on covers (ibid.;p.88). There's no suggestion they were looking to negotiate this up, just that they didn't know, but Target, specifically Bob Tanner, according to Nigel Robinson, read it as an opening salvo in pursuit of a higher fee, decided to scrap a Colin-featuring cover for The Twin Dilemma and requested a new Colin-free one '"rather than paying any more money to use the cover we already had"' (ibid.; p.90) as '"a matter of principle"' (ibid.).
Less clear and more convoluted than all this cover business are the actual contents of Doctor Who and the Visitation, into which we delve here...
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