Paul Cornell’s Friday Newsletter

I’m a Hugo Awards Finalist!

The graphic novel by myself, artist Valeria Burzo and colour artist Jordie Bellaire, The Witches of World War 2, is a Finalist in the Best Graphic Story or Comic category in this year’s Hugo Awards!

The Awards will be given out at the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow (August 8th-12th), and I’ll be at the ceremony. So wish me luck!

Those of you who are members of the convention, and thus able to vote, will find the complete digital version of the graphic novel in their Voter Packets, courtesy of our kind publishers, TKO.

Thanks again to everyone who nominated us!

The Who Killed Nessie? Crowdfunder is Live!

Who Killed Nessie? is the forthcoming cosy comedy cryptozoological whodunnit graphic novel from myself and the great cartoonist Rachael Smith. As we speak, the Zoop crowdfunder for the project is three days in, out of thirty, and is already a third of the way there, so thanks everyone who’s already backed us.

Particularly thanks should go to a celebrity author who noticed us early on:

"It’s like you dreamed up a comic just for me" - JOE HILL (creator of Locke & Key).

The story is set at an annual convention of cryptids, those mysterious beasts like the Yeti and the Kraken. When one of their number, the Loch Ness Monster, is murdered, they turn to the only being they can trust, the hotel’s only remaining staff member, intern Lindsay Grockle, to solve the mystery.

She may not believe in them, but they believe in her.

Rachael and I talk to Fanbase Press about the book here. (And we’re doing loads of other interviews, online and in podcasts.)

And here’s Rachael and I talking to John Sinutres of Word Balloon on YouTube! And here’s us also (on the same night) talking on video to Chad of Comic Watch!

You can find the crowdfunder, and check out all our lovely backer levels and stretch goals here.

And here are some pages of that amazingly cute Rachael Smith art!

I’m so delighted by what this book could be. Please check it out, and do spread the word!

The Collected Con and On is Out Now! (And you can read the first twenty pages for free! And hear me talk about it!)

Here’s something else I’m guesting on lots of podcast episodes about! Including this episode of Comics For Fun and Profit!

The collected edition of Con and On, with all five issues plus some lovely extras, will be out from Ahoy next Tuesday, 26th March, and is now available to pre-order from these links at Amazon UK and Amazon US. (And here it is at B&N.)

And Popverse have put up an exclusive free look at the first twenty pages of this story I’m so proud of. Do take a look.

I’m a Speaker at Develop: Brighton

Courtesy of Game Republic, I’m going to be on a panel at the Develop: Brighton gaming conference, which runs from 9th-11th July, though when my panel is still hasn’t been announced.

The panel is called Tips and Insights on Narrative Design from Leading Writers.

“Award-winning writers Rhianna Pratchett, Charles Cecil (Revolution, Broken Sword), Paul Cornell (Doctor Who, Marvel) and Judi Alston (Dreaming Methods) share their experiences, insights, learnings and tips for creating high quality narrative games with Dr Jackie Mulligan (Game Republic). The panelists will explore how to make narrative games on a budget, techniques to explore character, using new technology like AI and VR to enhance storytelling in games and trends in narrative design in particular stories being interpreted across multiple media. The session will also include a Q&A.”

I’m delighted to be part of such an excellent line-up.

Joanne Harris at Fairford Festival

So to help out my local Festival, I’ve had a hand in arranging for award-winning author Joanne Harris to make a personal appearance. If you’re going to be in the Cotswolds this summer, why not pop in? She’ll be appearing on Saturday, 8th June at 4pm as part of the Fairford Festival. You can see all the details and get tickets here.

Doctor Who: Goth Opera

It’s just been announced that my podcast partner Lizbeth Myles, already one of Big Finish’s most acclaimed writers, is going to be adapting for into audio drama for them my Doctor Who novel Goth Opera!

This Fifth Doctor vampire adventure with Nyssa and Tegan guest stars Richard Armitage, Natalie Gumede and Micah Balfour, and will be out in July!

You can read all about it here at Sci-Fi Bulletin and pre-order at Big Finish’s site here.

(This lovely final cover art by Sean Longmore.)

The Complete(d) Saucer Country is in Stores in September!

The Syzygy/Image edition of The Complete(d) Saucer Country, which has an entirely different design from the Zoop crowdfunded edition, will be in comic and book stores in September, and is now available for pre-order from Amazon! (Amazon release date: September 3rd.)

Witches of Lychford: Fantasy Cricket

That’s the title of the second and final new Lychford novella that paid subscribers to this Newsletter have now started recieving in serial form. (Because of Substack’s platforming of Nazis, I’m getting rid of the paid option when this serial is completed.) Episodes of the new serial will appear, as with the previous ones, at 5pm UK time on the first four Thursdays of every month.

If you subscribe now, you get to read all of the previous episodes, that is the whole last novella, Night of the Gnomes plus the Christmas Special Don’t Forget to Catch Me, as well as getting the new episodes going forward. It’s $8 (or the equivalent in your currency) per month, or $80 per year.

My Ko-fi and eBay Stores

I’ve re-stocked my Ko-fi store, where you can buy my books and comics, signed and personalised, and now I’ve set up shipping to a range of international destinations.

Similarly, I’ve now re-stocked my ebay store, full of Bronze Age Marvel comics at bargain prices, a Doctor Who item or two and, err, a guide to learning Japanese!

Hammer House of Podcast (hits a major milestone!)

Hammer House of Podcast, in which myself and Lizbeth Myles watch the Hammer horror movies in UK release order, is (usually) out on the 13th of every month, with our March episode being about To the Devil a Daughter, thus completing our mission of watching all of the classic era Hammer horrors! We’re now moving on to the modern Hammer movies, which will take us until the end of the year, and then we’ll be announcing our sequel podcast!

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.

(They were keen on ‘…’. What was the sentence before?)

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 Bonnie Burton is one of many great contributors to When I Was Young, a 100+ page comics anthology featuring short stories of inspiration, advice, and triumph. All profits will be donated to The Trevor Project to benefit LGBTQIA+ youth.

You can find out more and back this worthy volume, which has already been funded, here.

My Week

Oh boy, it’s been back to back work, with five pages of comics written to deadline every day, meetings about other comics, meetings about this huge new thing I’m doing, and the all-encompassing continual selling of the Who Killed Nessie? crowdfunder! I am exhausted. (Forgive me if I keep this short.)

But knowing that Hugo nomination… I mean Finalist… ation(?) was coming made a lot of difference. It’s such great recognition for a book that’s continued to sell really well in bookstores, but which the comics community don’t seem to have noticed very much.

Thomas has had a great first week of Half Term Holidays, with outings, jigsaws, plain chocolate brownies and much calm home time with his engines and Lego. His speech seems to have leapt up again, and he’s recently started saying ‘well done’ to me whenever I do something that meets his approval. I’m very aware that this summer is going to be the most enormous change for him, the move from Primary to Secondary school, from mainstream to specialist, and so giving him this happy time to store his energy feels very important.

Of course, this is Easter week, and so Caroline is not only very busy, but currently full of the darkness of this part of the religious calendar. Today was especially tough, and she’s spent most of it working, despite Fridays officially being her day off. So I’ve been doing loads of childcare while also trying to keep working. (And today I was watching for the Hugos to appear!)

Anyhow, as I said, short this week. I’m off to celebrate, just a little, before getting back to the crowdfunding! Phew!

To Be Continued

I hope to be able to poke my head a little further out of Nessie, as it were, in the next Newsletter.

And I hope to see you all next week!