Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

My Commando is out this month!

'The Longest War', by myself and the great artist Steve Yeowell, will be Commando #5881, out on 16th August. It'll be in many UK newsagents and superstores, I'll have copies at Thought Bubble, and nearer the time you'll be able to order it by post here at Mags Direct.

I’m a Guest at Caption!

On the afternoon of Sunday, August 17th, I’m going to be a guest at the Caption Small Press and Comics Festival in Botley, Oxford. I’m on the Networking in Comics panel. Do come along if you can! (And here’s an update at Down the Tubes.)

Gnomes of Lychford and The Lychford Collection

On 9th September, Tor.com Publishing is releasing the sixth book in my Lychford series of rural fantasy novellas, Gnomes of Lychford. It’s a re-editing of the serial I ran on this newsletter, and I’ve taken the opportunity to sort out a couple of little plot problems. I think it’s my best Lychford book, and, weirdly, it’s a great jumping-on point, because everything about the series is explained at the start. You can read all about it here.

And you can now pre-order!

“An unlikely group of supernatural creatures terrorizes the sleepy village of Lychford. Okay, they're gnomes. That's not a spoiler: you worked it out it from the title. When an ancient prophecy clashes with an unfortunate modern design aesthetic, the people of Lychford must band together to put out fires (both literal and metaphorical) to save their town before the king of the Gnomes (King Greg, and it's dangerous to laugh at a gnome) calls in the terms of an old promise. Trouble is: no one knows what the promise is, nor how to fulfil it. It's going to be a long night.”

And also up for pre-order, and out on the same day is The Lychford Collection, which contains my first three Lychford novellas. (Cover design for both by FORT.)

Who Killed Nessie?

On 18th September, Avery Hill will be releasing a bookstore edition of Who Killed Nessie?, the graphic novel by myself and the great Rachael Smith.

You can read all about it, and see lots of sample pages, here.

And you can pre-order it here.

You can also pre-order it from Amazon UK and Amazon US. And from all good bookstores and comic shops.

The reviews are already coming in, including this lovely one from Monkeys Fighting Robots.

On Saturday, 20th September, from 1pm-2pm, Rachael and I will be signing the book (copies of which will be on sale) at Waterstones London-Piccadilly!

Those of you who backed the graphic novel on Zoop, don’t worry, you’ll be getting a unique edition with a different cover. (And you’ll be getting it first.)

“A cosy comedy murder mystery… with a monstrous twist! Lyndsay Grockle has just started her new job at an isolated hotel. She’s trying to get over heartbreak. She’s amazed to be left in sole charge just before a big convention. When the terrifying guests start to arrive, she realises why: this is a gathering of the fantastic beasts of myth and legend! The attendees ask her to stay in her room and let them be. But when the Loch Ness Monster is found dead, there’s nobody else they trust to solve the murder. She may not entirely believe in them… but they believe in her! Lyndsay is going to have to dig deep into her own fears and vulnerabilities to discover… WHO KILLED NESSIE?”

The Mighty Avengers vs. the 1970s

On November 13th, I’ve got a book coming out from Bloomsbury that’s part of a new range of popular studies of Marvel Comics! The Mighty Avengers vs. the 1970s is fully illustrated with panels from the comics, and is my journey through how Marvel’s main super team navigated that difficult decade. You can read the announcement here at AP News. This is very much a labour of love for me, a book I’ve wanted to find a way to write for the longest time.

And you can now pre-order it from the publisher (and from all good booksellers)!

Thought Bubble

Our application has been accepted, so I’m pleased to say that Lizbeth Myles and I will once more be tabling at the wonderful Thought Bubble comic convention in Harrogate on November 15th and 16th.

Of Intrigue and Espionage

I have a story in this just-announced forthcoming volume from Stars and Sabers publishing, which is due out in October 2026. I’m in good company, as you can see from the full announcement here.

Cosmic Lighthouse and Salvation’s Child

Cosmic Lighthouse is a new comics company, the brainchild of myself and Lee Harris, with Anthony Cronin helping out with the day to day business. I’m the Editor-in-Chief.

Our mission is to publish original graphic novels by bestselling SFF authors.

And here, via this news story at IGN, where you can see lots of preview pages, is our launch title!

Salvation’s Child is the digital graphic novel Prologue to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s best-selling SFF novel series The Final Architecture. (So new readers can start here!) It’s by Adrian himself, artist Mike Collins, colour artist Pippa Bowland and letterer Simon Bowland. We’re publishing it together with our partners ComiXology.

It’s 110 pages of comics, plus extras, at what we think is quite the wonderful price. (Under a fiver!)

Check out these pre-order links at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

You can read more about the company and the project, with biogs, blurbs and histories, in our press release here.

And you can find Cosmic Lighthouse at these links on BlueSky and Instagram.

Salvation’s Child will be released by ComiXology Originals in 2026!

The Man in Black Commentary Track!

As revealed on Blu-ray.com, Liz Myles and I have a commentary track on one of the forthcoming Hammer 4k box sets: The Man in Black. It was a great pleasure to be asked to do our Hammer House of Podcast thing for what we found to be a great movie. We had lots to talk about. No release date yet, but you can find all the details here.

Telefantasy Time Jump

The new podcast from me and Lizbeth Myles covers the history of SFF on TV, from 1953 onward, with our regular episodes (on the 14th of every month) covering a show released that year in the UK, and the Patron Bonus episodes (on the 28th) covering a show from the rest of the world. The shows for August (covering 1960, with a new theme tune!) are Pathfinders and Thriller. The main episode is available free wherever you get your podcasts. To get the bonus episode, you need to follow us on Patreon at £3/$3 or above. (And you get access to seven years of Hammer House of Podcast bonus episodes!) You can find all the info here.

My Ko-fi and eBay Stores

Here’s my Ko-fi store, where you can buy my books and comics, signed and personalised, for shipping worldwide. And here’s my ebay store, full of Bronze Age Marvel comics at bargain prices.

My Linktrees

You can now find all my social media links, my website/blog and links to where you can buy my books, in one place here, thanks to Linktree! And here’s the one for Cosmic Lighthouse!

The Work and Causes of Friends

My old friend Jason Arnopp is fundraising his way toward treatment for his face and neck cancer, trying to get the best possible chance of surviving it. It’s going well, now he’s down to the logistics of funding where to stay while he’s undergoing treatment, but that’s every bit as necessary as the treatment itself. Please take a look at his GoFundMe and do whatever you can. This is life and death stuff.

On a lighter note, my friend Kieron Gillen has a new one-off comic coming out, which I’ve had the pleasure of reading in advance, Closer #1 (with Steve Lieber and Tamra Bonvillain) has to be ordered from your local comic shop on or before this Monday, August 11th. It’s like nothing else out there, except maybe it’s a bit Phonogram, and it’s a pleasure to see Kieron creating one-off mysterious tales like this, an everyday cosmic horror that could be a Black Mirror episode.

And my friend Peter Bebergal, to mark ten years since the publication of his classic Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll, will be presenting a special online talk and multimedia presentation with the Philosophical Research Society, "Dionysus Stardust: Theater, Masks, and the Spectacle of Rock & Roll," on Sunday August 17th at 5pm EST. Much David Bowie is promised. Tickets are available here.

My Week

The week after San Diego is always full of jet lag, and, this being the school holidays, for me it’s also been full of childcare, so I’m in the midst of a nervy scramble to try to follow-up on all those meetings I had with pitch documents. I’ve managed to complete precisely one project, and had a Zoom meeting with someone I completed missed at SDCC that got me an offer of another.

I’ve managed to take Tom out on a little outing every morning, one of which was a result of him being unusually positive about doing something new: going out bowling. He went on a trip to a bowling alley as a treat with his school, and thus this is a new area of experience he’s open to. So that was a great pleasure to follow up on. He tends to throw the bowling ball a little up into the air, which makes me wince as it crashes, but honestly nobody seems to mind, so we’ll keep on doing that. There was also another great drum lesson (he’s nearly ready for his first certificate!) We also encountered, unfortunately, two lacklusture local tourist traps, a very rough mini golf course and a gestural series of fairy cottages at the base of trees. Charming if encountered randomly in the wild, an anticlimax if you’ve paid to go on an enchanted walk. Today Caroline and I are taking him for pizza, and he goes to his regular swimming lesson, so I feel he’s been kept entertained.

Tonight begins the other local Festival, more focussed on beer and music than the one I retired from this year, but a good way to let one’s hair down. This little town does badly in August: it feels empty, with a lot of people away on vacation, and those still here seeming a little out of it. A sort of false Autumn, starting way too early, hasn’t helped. (You know I think the only good season is Summer.) This combination of climate change and upper class desertion will hopefully be soothed by the last event of our local Summer season, and I can take consolation in the fact that, though the Last Night of the Proms (and hence the onset of English Autumn Proper) is looming on the horizon, plenty of cricket lies ahead.

To Be Continued

Buck up, everyone! Still a bit of Summer left! I hope to see you all again next Friday!