Storm the castle! Ready the rampart! Fire the cannons! Whatever one does in a time like this.

Joshua Hale Fialkov has announced that with issue 13 of the Doctor Who ongoing comic from IDW, that he will be the new writer for the first arc of 2012, drawn by Matthew Dow Smit;

"the four-part As Time Goes By puts the Doctor, Amy, and Rory in the setting for the legendary movie Casablanca, albeit with classic Who aliens lurking in the shadows. Smith also will supply variant covers inspired by the noir film, with Mark Buckingham continuing as regular cover artist. "It's a dream come true to write the character that I've loved literally for as long as I can remember. I'm going to do my best to make every single one of the amazing people responsible for Who proud."

Current Doctor Who writer Tony Lee followed this with a post of his own.

"This hasn't been an easy decision to make, but it's the right one. I've been writing the ongoing, monthly comic for almost thirty issues now, through two Doctors, two show runners and two editors. Including "The Forgotten" and "The Time Machination" I've been pretty much writing Doctor Who on a month by month basis since 2008. He's been to the past, the future, his own museum, he's been body swapped, arrested, multiplied and won a penalty shoot out among other things during that time. And now is a good time to take a break and let fresher eyes take a look at the character. "I'm not gone, though. IDW have sequestered me aside to create a brand new Doctor Who mini series for mid 2012 with the remit 'make it bigger than The Forgotten', and I'm looking forward to talking about it more in the coming months. And Josh Fialkov, one of the best comic writers out there and a close friend of mine for almost a decade is a good man to take the baton and run with it. Anyone who's been to the last two Gallifrey One conventions will know that his fan credentials are solid, and he knows his stuff. And I mentioned he was one of the best comic writers out there, right? "But for now issue 12 is my last ongoing comic. When I wrote it, I knew that it was, and I hope I managed to give my run of the raggedy Doctor a solid end."