Today in Comics History, October 17, 1814 and 1940: BEST. FLOOD. EVER.

It's October 17, and lots of stuff happened today in comics history. Don't believe me? Let's check out what The Doctor and Rory "I'm Dead, Jim" Williams are up to!


from Doctor Who (2012 series) #3 (IDW, November 2012), script by Brandon Seifert, pencils and inks by Philip Bond, colors by Charlie Kirchoff, letters by Shawn Lee



Well, aside from being drawn by the great Philip Bond (seriously: Vimanarama? Read it.), they're also rescuring James Bond! Er, I mean, Ian Fleming. Same thing in this universe pretty much, right?


But enough about the Doctor and Rory. What's our second-favorite redhead*, Amy Pond, up to? Well, she's also Today in Comics History, only a century and change before:


WHOA A LITTLE PUSHY THERE 19TH CENTURY NICK FURY I mean what's going on that's so important at a London brewery on October 17, 1814?

Why, it is the only flood that's even better than the Boston Molasses Flood...the London Beer Flood.


Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's the London Beer Flood? Well, you could look it up on the virtual pages of the world's largest library that doesn't introduce Mary Sue River Song, Wikipedia, or you could just hang about and ask questions until the Doctor, eager to show off his vast galactic knowledge (no doubt aided by a little light reading of that most remarkable work The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Explains It All For You™:



from Doctor Who (2012 series) #4 (IDW, December 2012), script by Brandon Seifert, pencils by Philip Bond, inks by Ilias Kyriazis, colors by Charlie Kirchoff, letters by Tom B. Long
Oh, Amy's dead. Well, turnabout is fair play for once. And hey, the Doctor is almost as interested in the Boston Molasses Flood as Evan Dorkin is! Oh wait, Amy survived! Yay! She'll never be killed off!


Say, Doctor, what else happened on October 17 in Comics History?


Not pictured but also happening on October 17 throughout Comics History that I believe the Doctor probably had a hand in:

• 1771: The premiere in Milan of the opera Ascanio in Alba, composed by Wolfgang Mozart, age 15
• 1931: Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion.
• 1933: Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany for America
• 1956: The first commercial nuclear power station in England is opened
• 1968: Ziggy Marley is born

Also somewhere in there on an October 17: Torchwood ordered pizza.

*After Ann-Margrock.