Paul Cornell's Friday Newsletter

Project: Cryptid #1 is Out Next Week! (Preview Pages!)

Ahoy comics have a new comedy horror anthology series coming out next week, Project: Cryptid, with a variety of stories by great creators concerning mysterious beasts. I have a story with the great monster artist P.J. Holden in the first issue (and another with a different artist in a later issue). You can read all about it here at Screen Rant, with a list of the other contributors and some choice quotes and art. I love being part of Ahoy’s bouncy, fun, extra-packed series, and this one looks excellent. (And it also features the first comics work of my urban fantasy writer friend Melissa F. Olson!) Project Cryptid #1 will be in your comic stores and out digitally next Wednesday, 6th September!

You can read an interview with myself and the team, and read the first few pages of Mark Russell and Jordi Perez’s yeti strip here at Dread Central. 

(And here’s a piece about the serial, started by Grant Morrison, that forms part of the extras of all the Ahoy titles right now. As always with Ahoy, you get loads more stuff in the comics!)

Monthly Zoom Meet-Ups for Paid Subscribers Start this Sunday!

At 9pm BST on Sunday, 3rd September, I’ll be holding my first two hour Zoom meet-up for paid subscribers (who’ll get sent a Zoom link later today). This will be a monthly event (though the date within the month may vary, given my lifestyle), open to everyone who’s kind enough to pay for this newsletter’s subscriber content. You can ask me anything, including writing advice (though I can’t read anything of your work) and in the future I’ll sometimes bring along creator guests. I’m looking forward to it!

If you like the sound of that, you can sign up for the paid option here:

Fancy Getting Gamora’s First Comics Appearance?

Because of an enormous haul of comics at a car boot sale this week (as I talk about below), I’ve not got a handful of duplicate issues I’m selling on ebay. I thought I’d start with one of the most exciting ones. Strange Tales #180 is the first appearance of Guardians of the Galaxy’s Gamora, and right now the price is still pretty reasonable! Check it out here.

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.

Secret Invasion

I’m writing the novel of the acclaimed Marvel comic series Secret Invasion, which was originally written by Brian Michael Bendis with art (on the main title) by Leinil Francis Yu. The novel will be covering the central mini-series of that name, 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. The novel will be out from Titan on 9th September, and you can read all the details here at Forces of Geek.

And you can now pre-order the book from Amazon UK and Amazon US at those links.

Con and On #3

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 on 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.

(Cover by Peter Snejbjerg.)

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!

My Week

Last Monday was a Bank Holiday, so I ventured out to a couple of car boot sales. I’ve always been a bit perplexed about why these are so popular, but at the second of them, something I’ve always daydreamed about actually happened. There was a big box of old comics, being sold off for £1 each! And in there were loads I was after for my collection! I bought about fifty of them, including long runs of 1970s Howard the Duck and Jungle Action. (And that’s why above I’m auctioning one of the duplicates I bought in the process.)

Caroline returned from her Scotland adventure with Liz on Friday, and I was proud of how well things had gone while I was solo-parenting Tom. But later on that Bank Holiday Monday, Thomas had a major meltdown which was largely my fault. I’d given in to him asking and had bought him some kiwi fruits, despite Nanny Louise being pretty sure their acidity was the cause of a mouth condition he’d suffered from. On second thoughts, and having talked to both Louise and Caroline about it, I decided we shouldn’t let him have the kiwis after all. I told him and apologised for creating a false expectation (not in those words!), and I was expecting some anger on his part, but not an hours-long meltdown of door slamming and yelling. So it was really quite a few days before I felt together enough to enjoy the idea of having found those comics.

When my equilibrium had been re-established, though, I started again to feel that sense of things starting to be okay. It helped that midweek I signed contracts for a new creator-owned comic for one of my favourite companies. And I also had a very promising meeting with a publisher who asked for a written pitch.

One fun thing that added to my good mood was that on Wednesday my cricket team went for a return match against the USAF, this time playing softball (baseball with a softer ball) at their base. They absolutely destroyed us, our main nemesis being an eight year old boy whose bat was bigger than he was. I was, however, quite pleased with how well I did in the field, managing to run someone out by returning the ball to the base. (I think that’s how it works.) Afterwards, my time re-convened at the pub for a lovely warm boozy night, and I think I’m making new local friends.

I’ve found this week, which had lots of little interruptions like the car needing a service, has been the hardest one of Tom’s holiday time to work in, so, apart from finishing off a couple of smaller things (like an essay for a magazine yesterday), I’ve decided to treat it as a holiday. Today, as an end of holidays treat, we’re taking Thomas on a day-long outing. It’ll be great to spend some more quality time with him. But, phew, I’m looking forward to the return of full work days!

To Be Continued

I look forward to seeing several of you in the flesh on Sunday!

And I hope to see you all again next week!