DWM is recognised by Guinness World Records as the longest running TV tie-in magazine, celebrating 40 years of continuous publication on 11 October 2019.

DWM's founding editor was Dez Skinn, who had been headhunted by Stan Lee (the figurehead and creative leader at Marvel) to oversee the revitalisation of the ailing UK division.

I felt it would be a perfect stablemate to my then-current House of Hammer magazine, and could be produced in the same format, with a mix of comic strips and features, going behind and beyond the TV series.

Neary first attempted to target the publication at a younger readership; when this failed to halt falling sales, he instead relaunched the title as a monthly magazine.

Subsequent editors gradually realised then surpassed Skinn's vision of a more mature magazine, getting rid of secondary and tertiary comic strips for regular features and articles going behind the scenes of the show.

In February 2001, the editor at the time Alan Barnes, oversaw the transformation of the comic strip from black and white to full-colour with the first episode of the Eighth Doctor story Ophidius (issue 300).

[17] Clayton Hickman became the editor in 2002, launching the deluxe triannual Special Editions of the magazine (which are running to this day) and the Doctor Who Annual, later Storybook, in 1996 (which ceased publication after five years).

Subsequent editor Tom Spilsbury took over in 2007, later launching the deluxe triannual Bookazine (running parallel to the Special Editions, and again still being produced to this day).

[27] Each issue of DWM contains a main comic strip (occasionally with secondary and tertiary strips or illustrated short stories), regular features (such as a letters page, previews and reviews of TV episodes, books and audios, and updates from the transmedia world of Doctor Who), and special articles (sometimes one-offs, sometimes in serial form, including interviews, analyses, and making-ofs).

Although work was done on this storyline, then editor Clayton Hickman and writer Scott Gray eventually turned down the offer as they felt they couldn't do such an important event justice under the constraints imposed by the TV series' continuity.

Returning to the origins of the DWM main strip, Panini licensed IDW, an American comic book company, for new digitalised colour reprints of Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Doctor stories.

Beginning in January 2008 and running into 2013, IDW printed its Doctor Who Classics monthly comic book series, going on to collect the colourised strips into various trade paperbacks and omnibus editions.

During the mid-2000s, in the wake of the successful return of Doctor Who to television, the BBC began offering multiple comic strip publishing licences effectively ending the monopoly held by DWM since they had taken over where Polystyle had left off.

Embedded into the 'Galaxy Forum' letters page, it lampooned a recent episode, DVD release of stories or other such event by showing alternative, exaggerated and expanded versions of Doctor Who scenes.

(where readers' questions about the show are answered), "On This Month" (which looks at an old issue on the anniversary of its publication) and "WhoTube" (which highlights "Doctor Who"-themed videos which can be viewed online); reviews of television episodes and merchandise (in "The DWM Review", known for a time as "After Image", "Off the Shelf", and "Shelf Life"); the "Time Team", which involves four fans watching every Doctor Who story in order from the beginning; and, since production restarted on the series in 2004, a regular column "Production Notes" by the show's executive producer.

(compiled by 'The Watcher'), a comedy page with such recurring features as, 'A History of Doctor Who in 100 Objects', 'Supporting Artist of the Month', a spoof 'Top Ten', the 'Stockbridge English Dictionary' (a variation on a game from I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue) and a true or false quiz "The Six Faces of Delusion".

Prior to this, the slot was taken up by a page called "Who on Earth is...", featuring a short interview with someone previously (or currently) involved in Doctor Who (say, a member of the cast).

The magazine also features interviews with the cast and crew of the television show (including the old episodes), and reports from the set of the current series, written by Benjamin Cook or Jason Arnopp.

"The DWM Review" is currently written predominantly by Graham Kibble-White, former editor Gary Gillatt, Paul Kirkley, Martin Ruddock and Matt Michael.

After Marvel sold Doctor Who Magazine to Panini in 1995, the different formats of Graphic Novels would become much more harmonized with the introduction of the 'Doctor Who Comic Strip Collected Editions (2004–present)'.

The character of Death's Head was a giant robotic bounty hunter created by writer Simon Furman for the Marvel UK's The Transformers comic.

[124] However, when artist Geoff Senior showed Furman the initial character designs, both agreed Death's Head had potential beyond his planned transitory appearance.

In this short strip, Death's Head was a noir-ish contract killer of human proportions (thus anticipating the character's size and occupation post-Transformers appearances).

In this story the Doctor and Death's Head clashed, the former reducing the latter from a giant robot to human size with 'one of the Master's Tissue Compression Eliminators!,' before sending him to Earth.

In the story, the Seventh Doctor attends a party populated by a number of his foes, and witnesses a bar fight explode, in which Death's Head plays a contributing factor.

Commissioned by the new editor Paul Neary, Death's Head II replaced the original character with a new version created by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Liam Sharp.

In an autumn 1992 interview with Comic World, Neary was dismissive about the original character, saying 'I didn't think there was much future in Transformers-style robots and I thought we could do an awful lot better."

There, assistant editor Marcus Hearn alluded to a 'big finale' the following month; continuing 'We're going out in style with Issue 27 – a special collector's edition with a wrap-round cover' and various other features.

Content in the partwork was largely based on Andrew Pixley's Archive features which were initially published in Doctor Who Magazine throughout the 80s, 90s and early 2000s and continue in numerous special editions (see above); however, a considerable amount of new material was written exclusively for the books.

Many of the Collected Edition also feature bonus material, such as specially commissioned commentaries by the authors and artists, and sometimes short stories (the latter taken from Doctor Who Magazine) – these are signalled in the 'Notes' of the below table.