Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

Who Killed Nessie? is Out Now! (With Instagram Takeover!)

Who Killed Nessie?, the graphic novel by myself and the great Rachael Smith, is out now (but will be available on Amazon from 18th September).

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

And you can order it here, direct from the publishers, Avery Hill.

You can also pre-order it from Amazon UK and Amazon US.

And it’s in all good bookstores, physical and online!

If you check out the averyhillpublishing Instagram feed, you’ll find a series of ten ‘takeover’ posts written by one of our characters, the Fairy Queen. She’s really not great at selling our book.

And you can check out how the AMA by Rachael and I went at r/fantasy on Reddit here.

And if you’re going to SPX in Bethesda this weekend, it’s one of the event’s highlighted titles! 

Our Zoop backers should now have got an email saying their copies are in the mail, and I’m hoping those who asked for a digital copy have now got them. Let me know if not, and again, many thanks for making this possible. Your edition has an exclusive cover.

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!

On Saturday, 27th September at Noon I’ll be signing the book at Excelsior Comics in Bristol!

And on Friday, 10th October at 7pm, (no link yet) Rachael and I will be participating in the Avery Hill Publishing Launch Party at Gosh! Comics in London!

“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?”

Gnomes of Lychford is Out Now!

In all good bookstores, physical and online right now is the sixth book in my Lychford series of rural fantasy novellas, Gnomes of Lychford. 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 and find all the ordering info here.

“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 up for pre-order, but now coming out instead on 14th October is The Lychford Collection, which contains my first three Lychford novellas. (Cover design for both by FORT.)

The Man in Black is Out Now!

Liz Myles and I have a commentary track on one of the new Hammer 4k box sets: The Man in Black, which is out now. 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. You can see all the details and order the set direct from Hammer here.

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

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 and the Mercer Gallery Exhibition

Lizbeth Myles and I will once more be tabling at the wonderful Thought Bubble comic convention in Harrogate on November 15th and 16th.

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.) To quote from the press release:

‘Harrogate’s Mercer Art Gallery has teamed up with indie publisher Avery Hill Publishing to create an exhibition showcasing some of today’s most exciting comics creators. Opening in October in time for this year’s Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival, the exhibition offers a fascinating glimpse into the work of leading comic artists, and an important snapshot of the UK comics landscape over the past decade.’

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

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

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!

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 September (covering 1961) are A from Andromeda/The Avengers and Way Out. 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!

My Week

Phew. Sorry about last week’s panic. I’m now, thanks to the help of Overclockers, in charge of my new PC, and I have only one wrinkle left to iron out.

It’s been a really great week. I’ve never had two books released back to back before, and having to quickly ramp up yesterday for an Instagram takeover (I’m really proud of those Fairy Queen posts) and AMA was quite the thrill ride. I hope I’ve given both Gnomes and Nessie the sendoff deserved by two things I’m very pleased with.

On Wednesday I did a very pleasing and rather odd thing. I was asked to address a company get-together held by Bloomsbury, the Academic wing of which is publishing my Avengers book. There’s an Underground strike in London right now, so I walked from Paddington station to Forbidden Planet, then wandered up to Euston where the event was taking place. Normally I love walking in London, but this time I got drenched. Still, I got to see lots of great city life and explore some bookshops. The event brought together writers from all across the publisher’s different imprints, so in the green room I got to meet the wonderful Lucian Msamati, an actor who’s written a book about his experiences playing in Waiting for Godot, Samuel West (Liz said I should have asked him about playing the Rani’s companion in the Doctor Who spinoff ‘Dimensions in Time’ and it was perhaps best I hadn’t remembered that), critic Samira Ahmed (who’s just launched a new podcast about old TV called Through the Square Window) and first time fantasy author Venetia Constantine, whose novel The Last Starborn Seer will be out next year. Add in a number of excellent editors and commissioners and it was quite the salon. I felt very at home, and I think I did well onstage, despite having to deal with my first experience of an autocue.

I also wanted to mention something weird from my unconscious. There’s nothing more dull than people sharing their dreams, but I think this may strike a chord with you in the audience. I had a dream this week which I believe to be a recurring one, or it’s equally possible it just told me it was a recurring one but is actually brand new, in which I head out of railway station, find after a little difficulty a newsagent that sometimes has a stack of old comics, then make my way to the town’s actual comic shop, which is a bit disorganised, but a place where good things can be found. It’s a really everyday atmosphere, nothing odd going on at all. The thing is, I woke up with the feeling that this dream is actually a memory, that this is a place I once visited every now and then. I accepted that offhandedly for a couple of hours. But then I realised… there’s nowhere in my past that fits that description. I’m now edging toward the idea that this town isn’t real, except I’d like to go see a place called Hanley, where I used to buy comics when I was at college. I have specific memories about what that place was like, though, and the comic shop in question doesn’t match the ones from the dream. It’s just that’s really the only place it could be. I’m always intrigued by how much of one’s memory is actually a lie, just stories one tells to oneself. If I find myself walking those streets again in real life or in dreams I’ll let you know.

Thomas had another good school week. He says that today he’ll be doing cooking in his reward hour, because he’s ‘an expert’ now. And indeed, the last couple of things he’s brought home for me to try have been entirely edible. When I mentioned the exciting prospect of Star Trek Lego in his hearing, he perked up and said he could build it with me, which delighted me.

I’ve also had some very good news about that fantasy novel I finished a few months back. So all in all, despite the sighful onset of autumn… yeah, I’ll take that week.

To Be Continued

I’m off to see Unfolding, Emma Vieceli’s new musical, in Cambridge on Saturday. It promises to be an extraordinary evening. You can still book tickets here. And then you can say you were one of the first to see it!

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