Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

Bedford Signings Tomorrow!

I’m in Bedford tomorrow, Saturday 1st November, firstly from Noon in Bedford Central Library, then from 1pm at the Close Encounters comic store. I’ll be with Baldur’s Gate 3 artist Dave Stokes and my Who Killed Nessie? partner Rachael Smith, and I’ll be signing that, The Mighty Avengers vs. the 1970s and anything else you’d like to bring along!

Thought Bubble!

Lizbeth Myles and I will once more be tabling at the wonderful Thought Bubble comic convention in Harrogate on November 15th and 16th. (You can find the full list of exhibitors here.) I’ve also once again been given guest status, bless them!

You’ll be able to find us at table D4 in the ComiXology Hall (along the right wall, right by the entrance!)

(We’ll have Rachael Smith on one side, which is handy for signing Who Killed Nessie? and Gary Erskine on the other, so we’re in lovely company.)

And if you’re an aspiring comicker, and want a pro to check out your portfolio, I’m one of many at the show who’s signed up to do just that! Check out all the details at the link.

And Vision & Labour: Making Comics, The Art Of Avery Hill Publishing is an exhibition at the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate which is going to be running between 18th October and 26th April. (Neatly over the weekend of Thought Bubble.)

Included in the exhibition will be a display case featuring the process of Rachael Smith and I making Who Killed Nessie?!

There’s an opening night for the exhibition on the Friday of the convention, November 14th from 6.30pm. I’ll be hanging around, pointing at our display case.

I’m really looking forward to it, and I very much want a copy of Kristyna Baczynski’s poster below.

The Mighty Avengers vs. the 1970s is Out in Two Weeks!

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), now with some preview pages at that link that really show off our full colour art!

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

Check out the new website for my comics company Cosmic Lighthouse, with a first glimpse at Sophie Aldred (Ace in Doctor Who) playing Adrian Tchaikovsky’s cloned soldiers The Partheni!

Cosmic Lighthouse is 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 on June 16th, 2026!

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 October (covering 1962) are Fireball XL-5/Out of this World and Space Angel. 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 (Now with Commando!)

Here’s my Ko-fi store, where you can buy my books and comics, signed and personalised, for shipping worldwide. (I’ve just added my Commando issue!) 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!

My Week

This morning I finally decided (largely because I wasn’t going to get the chance for many more days) to go to Minor Injuries when it opened at 8am and get them to take a look at my right heel. Two weeks ago, I’d stood on something in the kitchen, resulting in pain and blood. A ‘spelk’ as my Mum would have called it had gone into my foot. Caroline took a look, couldn’t find anything, cleaned it up and put a plaster on. But it gradually got more and more painful to walk on, and I realised I could feel something in there. So, this morning, in eighty minutes, the wonderful Lucia (who had the perfect vampire accent, ‘there vill be a little blud’) triaged me, had me x-rayed, found a shard of glass and pulled it out. All for absolutely no charge. (Apart from, that is, the small National Insurance payment we all make every month.) This is why the NHS is so amazing, and why it must be protected against the likes of Reform, who are in the pocket of American health companies and would have us all paying U.S.-level prices. At any rate, I came home walking on air, and on a pain-free foot.

My week looking after Tom solo went really well. I actually ended up loving the closeness we had as a result. We went bowling, and baked brownies (with him doing a lot of the work, just like at school). I managed to keep up with my word count, writing on the sofa beside him, and the smallness of my world in that week felt cosy, simple. All I had to do was look after him. I was glad to have a few hours to play Indiana Jones after Caroline got back, though.

Tonight I’m off to a Halloween pub quiz (Caroline will be taking Thomas trick or treating in his skeleton costume), then tomorrow I return from the Bedford signing in time to attend the annual Cricket Club Dinner, then get back home in time to attend a friend’s wedding in the U.S. on Zoom! I may hop around on my newly happy foot at some point, just because I can.

To Be Continued

I hope to see some of you tomorrow in Bedford!

And I hope to see all of you here again next week!