Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

Project: Cryptid #1 is Out Now!

In your comic stores and available digitally from Amazon US and Amazon UK at those links is Project: Cryptid #1, the start of a new comedy horror comics anthology series from Ahoy. In the first issue is ‘Wormy and Me’, a story by myself and artist P.J. Holden, with Mike Spicer on colour art and Rob Steen lettering, a tale of one man and his Mongolian Death Worm. The issue also features work by Mark Russell and Grant Morrison, the start of a prose serial in the extras running across lots of Ahoy comics.

You can see some preview pages here at Dread Central, read about that serial here at Gizmodo, there’s a whole bunch of us creators from across the whole run chatting about it here at AIPT, a different bunch of answers here at Comicbook.com, and here I am on the Open World Chat podcast talking about it. There are so many great reviews out there, it seems we’re a hit!

I had so much fun with this. You’re bound to get a laugh out of something in this issue, with all the talent involved. Do check it out.

(Variant cover by Jordi Perez.)

Secret Invasion Change of Release Date

My novelisation of the Marvel comics series Secret Invasion is now coming out from Titan next Tuesday, September 12th.

The novel will be covering the central mini-series of that name by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu, plus lots of excursions into the other comics involved in the crossover, my own Captain Britain and MI-13 included. I’m excited to be once again grappling with the Marvel Universe.

You can pre-order the book from Amazon UK and Amazon US at those links, as well as from any other good bookstore!

Con and On #3 (Now with Preview Pages!)

The third issue of my satire on the comics industry across decades (with art from Marika Cresta), Con and On, is out from Ahoy Comics next Wednesday,  13th September. It’s 2008: fame grows and departs; Anthony Mole is not comfortable in the size of room he now has to sign in; death touches someone on the shoulder.

You can see the first few pages here at Graphic Policy. 

October Subscriber Meet-Up

I’ll be Zoom meeting with paid subscribers again at 9pm UK time on Sunday, 29th October. The first one was great fun, so I’m going to keep this going for at least a while, see where it goes. Those subscribers will get an invite on the Friday before.

Avengers Auction

This week’s ebay adventure for one of the doubles from my collection is Avengers #174 from 1978, featuring an early appearance of The Collector and a lovely George Perez cover. As always, I start at 99p because I just like to see these go to good homes. Do take a look.

Witches of Lychford: Night of the Gnomes

My new sequel to my bestselling Witches of Lychford rural fantasy series (urban fantasy in the Cotswolds) is in the form of a serial right here on Substack, and lots of episodes are now out there!

On the first four Thursdays of every month, at 5pm BST (or GMT when we get there) paid subscribers will get an episode of the new serial. It’ll run until the end of November, then there’ll be a four-episode Christmas Special, then another new Lychford serial will run until the end of May, 2024. (So those who’ve subscribed for the whole year will get a full year of episodes.)

It’ll be absolutely fine for those who haven’t read the books to start reading with this serial, because we’ll re-introduce the whole concept. (Though you will be spoiled for what’s happened previously.) And paid subscribers can read all the previous episodes too, so you’ll be able to catch up if you join late.

Lychford is a little modern-day market town in the Cotswolds that borders many of the hidden worlds of the supernatural, the lands of the fairy folk, of demons, of a whole array of magical creatures. Protecting it are three very different women. There’s a lot of comedy in this series, mostly about the clash between everyday life and the world of magic, but there’s also some dark heartfelt emotional stuff and some real-world commentary on what life in such a town is like right now (because I live in such a town).

I’ve missed writing about Lizzie, Autumn, new coven member Zoya and their increasingly-large supporting cast of town councillors, pensioners and creatures of the night. I’m also looking forward to the rollercoaster of having to put fingers to keyboard on a regular basis.

To get this Lychford serial, just subscribe to the paid option on this Newsletter. It’s $8/month or $80/year.

Subscribed

And of course you’ll always get the Friday Newsletter and exclusive subscriber content for free. (And I don’t share your email address with anyone.)

If you’d like to catch up on the Lychford series up to now, five novellas have been published by Tor.com. You can find them all here at Bookshop.org and support UK indie bookstores, or here are links to the first one at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

And if you want to see the last story about my three heroines, it’s a Christmas story from a few years back, available for free here on my blog!

I’m looking forward to my adventure into serial fiction.

If you want to read the Prologue to Witches of Lychford: Night of the Gnomes, you can find it here for free.

Hammer House of Podcast

Hammer House of Podcast, in which myself and Lizbeth Myles watch the Hammer horror movies in UK release order, is out on the 13th of every month, with our August episode being about 1972’s Fear in the Night. You can get these episodes free wherever you normally get your podcasts, as well as on our site, but if you sign up to our Patreon, for any sum of money from £1/$1, you get an extra episode every month too, on the 27th, in which we watch Patron requested movies and films from other horror studios of the same era.

(For the last Hammer contribution by the great Jimmy Sangster, it’s really just… very okay?)

Find my Books at Bookshop.Org and Help Out Indie Booksellers!

Bookshop.org is a collective selling tool that sets up a marketplace for all indie bookstores in the UK, functioning exactly like Amazon, except you’re supporting your local bookshop. You can find a selection of my books here, and I get a little cut of the proceeds too if you order from here!

My Linktree

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!

The Work of Friends

My friend the writer Eddie Robson has a new interactive horror game out now, and a new strip in 2000AD! Check out his news here on his Substack.

My Week

Thomas is doing pretty well in his first week of Year Six (the last year of his primary school). ‘Year Six will be okay,’ he told me in the playground the other day, which is him asking for me to say that so I did. But he’s coming home happy. Some tension arose this week when he suddenly walked down the stairs naked and dripping and declared that he’d had a bath. This was an entirely new demonstration of initiative on his part, and I kind of welcomed it as I towelled him down, even when he told me it was a cold bath, but that was until I saw the bathroom. He’d managed to splash water into just about every crevice. Now, this was clearly a replacement for the paddling pool in the garden, which had been retired as the days got colder (before this week’s sudden blast of climate change heat). Thomas improvises ‘cold water therapy’ to literally cool himself down when things get too tense or emotional. And that’s great. His self-invented coping strategies for autism are wonderful. He’s managed to come back down from full-on meltdowns like that. But the structural integrity of the building is also an issue. When he had another bath next day, and, despite verbal warnings, it didn’t get better, rules were laid down, a sign was put up, and Thomas’ response was angry yelling and slamming of doors. But then he did it. On the third night he had a cold bath where all the water stayed in the bath. Much praise resulted, which caused him to get angry all over again, because he kind of hates it when he’s forced to make good choices and follow the rules. But he was placated by being awarded a Brilliant Day for having turned that around. It’s a bit worrying that he hasn’t chosen to have a bath since, because I don’t want him to have been denied his cool downs, and I hope this wasn’t all about naughtiness, but I’ll tell him this afternoon that it’s an option and see what he decides to do.

I played cricket again this week, with my very random scratch team. The opposition simply didn’t turn up (they were scared of us, said Liz), so we played some local children, who, despite us being in drunken control of the scoreboard and the number of overs we were playing, still managed to beat us. Though our Captain declared it to have been a draw. (You see there’s a pattern developing here.) Then there was, again, much drunken bonding. I’m rather glad the season’s coming to an end, I’m not sure my knees and liver can take it.

To Be Continued

A double-release week next week! I hope to see you all then!