Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

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.

Star Trek Article

I’m quoted in this Den of Geek piece by Chris Farnell which examines the relationship between Star Trek and parody (and contains spoilers for the new Strange New Worlds). I’m in some great company too.

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 in their existing universes. No ghost writers. These authors will be writing their own comics!

And a couple of days ago I was proud to announce, via this news story at IGN, where you can see lots of preview pages, 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!

Commando Release Date and Cover

'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! (New Update!)

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 a new 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.

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 of Friends

The novelist Jendia Gammon has a choose your own adventure book coming out from Penguin! Dungeon Crawl at the Haunted Mall is out next year!

And Jendia would like to point your attention to Of Dread, Decay and Doom, a horror anthology she’s co-edited with Gareth L. Powell that has a stellar line-up of writers, but needs some crowdfunding support.

My Week(s)

So, hey, San Diego Comic Con. I’ve never been so worried before an SDCC before. I’d become very worked up about the reports concerning comickers being detained by immigration at the US border, and the possibility of trouble at or around the con. Despite my ESTA visa waiver absolutely allowing me to have business meetings and appear on panels, I wore a colourful X-Men t-shirt and was ready to say I was just there for fun. In the end, the standard bored border guards waved myself and Liz through the gate.

This time around, we’d decided to do a bit of tourist stuff, so we went on an amazing amphibious cruise through the town and around the harbour. This included: sea lions; trained military dolphins being fed; a US Navy submarine setting out to see and an enormous cargo vessel speeding in to dock. I also girded my loins with many, many, antihistamines and went to a cat cafe. (Recalling what happened in terms of swelling and sneezing when I once had a meeting there, as I depicted in Con and On.) That went fine too.

I always find SDCC to be a sort of peak experience, something I look forward to all year, the ideal mixture of work and pleasure that satisfies me tremendously. This time around, I very much enjoyed being a part of the ComiXology gang, with many panels and a dinner, getting to know new friends like Michael Avon Oeming, Taki Soma and Omar Morales.

Stand out panels for me included Melissa F. Olson’s one about writing cross-media, the Legendary Comics one, hosted by Robert Napton, which enthusiastically delivered news about their universes to a big audience, and the Bloomsbury one about the Marvel Age of Comics books, which not only had all the authors of the current line-up, but added Paul Levitz from the next wave too, and was full of fannish glee.

Liz and I were snuck into the Doctor Who offsite, U.N.I.T.’s Black Archive (only to find fandom friends were already at the front of the line), and found it to be charming, with very into-it actors having fun with directing us around a highly detailed sort-of-escape-room full of Who easter eggs.

It was also a pleasure to run into so many of the great and the good from comics, not only my old friends Bob Wayne and Tom Brevoort, but Steven Grant (who helped me out on the Marvel book and is a subscriber, so hi Steven!), Maggie Thompson and the aforementioned Paul Levitz, who I’d never had the pleasure of encountering previously.

The evenings, of course, brought getting together with many friends. (Though I kept leaving early, trying to sustain my energy levels for all the breakfast meetings.) Here’s a snapshot of one lovely night on a hotel balcony.

One thing which I didn’t expect, but which was incredibly heartening, was that I’d become such a part of the furniture now that editors, people I ran into at the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund party, even sellers at booths would recognise me. Being included and welcomed like that was the best thing of all. (Well, other than having Liz along for the ride.) There were also many successful meetings, and thus much to do now in terms of sending off pitches.

The very last thing was something I’ve wanted to attend for a while: the SDCC Unofficial Blog’s Club Toucan end-of-con party. Cosy, fun-packed and friendly, it was the ideal conclusion.

I was surprised that this year’s SDCC felt so warm and positive, given the social background against which it was set. I think perhaps people just wanted and needed it to be a good one, and thus they made it so. On the way to our plane, a face-recognition device didn’t work, and so I was taken aside for a moment and photrographed by police. They asked me if my trip had been for business or pleasure. ‘Pleasure,’ I replied. And I meant it. But also I’d been slapped right back in that moment to wondering how much care I had to take.

To Be Continued

Assuming my jetlag fades, I hope to see you all again next Friday!