The other day, a co-worker of mine was taking a poll, asking the question: “If you could have any super-power, what would it be?”

Tom Baker as The Doctor.
Graphite on Paper.
April 1, 2013.

Ensued was a conversation about what actually qualifies as a ‘super-power’. I considered the usual: the ability to fly, to teleport, to read the minds of others, to have eternal life, to have x-ray vision… It only took me a second to decide what super-ability I would adopt: I would take on the abilities of a Time Lord, like those of The Doctor.

Choosing the abilities of a Time Lord was either a show of my brilliance, or it was a result of my partner and I’s current insatiable addiction to classic Doctor Who on Netflix. Either way, choosing the ability to travel through space to any location in the universe at any point in that location’s applying time spectrum while living for hundreds and hundreds of years and never really getting old seems a bit unfair when answering the question of which singular super-ability one would choose for his or her self… But, that is what the job description of a Time Lord is!

Anyway, I drew Tom Baker as the Doctor because I was inspired by his quirkiness, his ridiculous facial expressions, and his perfect portrayal of what the time-traveling, mad-scientist-like Doctor would actually be like. (And his scarf — of which I have begun to knit a replica of — is incredible. I’ll talk to you about it again in a year when I am actually finished with the 12-foot-long-or-more masterpiece.)

I developed this sketch while watching a full four-part collection, referencing the image here.

He is definitely a subject I hope to be revisiting in mixed media…