Paul Cornell’s Friday Newsletter
For 18th October. Our sequel podcast is announced! And where to find us at Thought Bubble!
The Sequel to Hammer House of Podcast is… Telefantasy Time Jump!
Lizbeth Myles and I have just about completed our seven year journey as curators of the Hammer House of Podcast, with our final episode, a Christmas Special, coming out in December.
So, on January 13th, we’ll be starting our new podcast, Telefantasy Time Jump. It’s going to be about the history of fantastic television in the UK, going year by year, starting with 1953. (But we’ll be talking in the first episode about all the shows that came out before that date.) Each episode one of us will pick a UK series from that year for us to watch two examples of, and the other one of us will select a show from the rest of the world in that year to talk about on our extra monthly episode for Patreon supporters. (Everyone who’s at the £3/$3 level or above.)
If you’re a current Patron of HHoP, you don’t have to do anything (except set your patronage to the £3/$3 level if you want the extra episode). The HHoP Patreon site will simply turn into the TTJ site and memberships will be carried over. If you get HHoP through a podcast app, you may have to re-subscribe, but we’ll get into that as 2025 approaches.
HHoP will be leaving Twitter/X as soon as the podcast is finished. (I envisage our team of weirdies leaping on an ancient carriage driven by Christopher Lee that gallops off out of there.)
You can now find the new podcast at these links on Instagram (where it’s /telefantasytimejump/) and Bluesky (where it’s TelefantasyTJ.bsky.social).
I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved in our seven year run, and I hope you’ll follow us to our new monthly home!
How to Find Us at Thought Bubble!
Lizbeth Myles and I will once more be running at table at the great Thought Bubble comics convention in Harrogate on 16th-17th November! I’m looking forward to meeting once again so many lovely comics fans. And this year I’ve once again got guest status, which is a lovely gesture.
And they’ve just told us where our table will be. We’re going to be at A14 in the DSTLRY Hall, next to Rachael Smith!
Do drop by to see us!
London MCM Comic Con is a Week Tomorrow!
On Saturday, 26th October, I’ll be a guest at the London MCM Comic Con, doing panels and signings!
The Death of Wolverine
As announced here on ICv2, on 27th November Marvel will be releasing an omnibus edition of the Death of Wolverine storyline, featuring not only the miniseries of that name, but also my entire run on the comic. I’m very pleased that all this material will now be available in one volume.
There are going to be two covers, this regular one from Alex Ross…
And this direct market exclusive version from Joe Quesada.
It’s available to pre-order on Amazon, and at all good bookstores and comic shops.
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. (These will also be coming along to Thought Bubble!)
The Current 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 October episode being about The Lodge.
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. (But you now might want to sign up at the £3/$3 level to get the bonus episodes for our sequel podcast!)
(That particular incarnation of Hammer made some great movies.)
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
I’d like to talk today about my friend Joe Glass, a genuine comics great who I think gets left behind a little when it comes to recognition. He’s in the middle (with his co-editor Matt Miner) of a new Kickstarter campaign (and from my own experience, with 12 days to go he’s going to get there) for the second of his gay romance anthologies, Young Men in Love, which has contributions from a number of amazing creators including Al Ewing, Anthony Oliveira and Noah Dao.
You can read more about it, meet the creators, and check out the backer levels and stretch goals here.
“YOUNG MEN IN LOVE: NEW ROMANCE is a 160-page, teen appropriate, anthology celebrating queer love, specifically between men. Available with a Kickstarter Exclusive Cover! This is a follow up to the award-winning first volume, which won the GLAAD Media Award, a Ringo Award, a Gayming Mag Award, and was nominated for a Dwayne McDuffie Diversity in Comics Award. While it isn't necessary to read the first volume to enjoy this new collection, we have made it available as well. We're also offering the new book with two different covers, both by the amazingly talented Ricardo Bessa! There's a Kickstarter Exclusive cover (above) only available through this campaign, and the regular edition cover (below) which will be distributed worldwide during its June 2025 release.”
And if you want more Joe Glass in your life, and who wouldn’t, you can find links to all his work here. Do check it out!
My Week
It’s Tom’s birthday party tomorrow (no, I don’t use his dates in any passwords), with Grandma and Grandad and some of his Godparents coming over for lunch, then presents and cake. This cake, to be precise, sourced from this highly-recommended baker.
I’ve also found a couple of (quite rare, there’s a collector market in these) Mini Engines that Tom wanted, which can perch on top. Thomas has had a really good week, including his first Parents’ Evening at his new senior school, where he, rather awkwardly, sat with us to hear from his teacher how he was doing. It was very odd to see him doing his At School persona while we were there, extremely attentive and polite, but then, wonderfully, suddenly offering new opinions and information about what he liked. Caroline and I heard that his only problem, really, is blurting out the answers to questions put to other children. He nodded about working on that. So he got some fish and chips that evening.
He’s been doing some work on ‘the gothic’ this week, which includes him producing this really quite amazing (well, I would think that), artwork. I think he might have an inner Goth. I’ve found that, since he’s gone to his new specialist school, the level of conversations I have with him as improved a lot. All in all, this gives me a level of baseline happiness which is absolutely wonderful.
As for me, I’ve been in a trance of reading three comics and 30 pages of novel every day as research for a commissioned non-fiction book and a commissioned novel. The level of notes means that’s my work day. It feels odd to be reading to a deadline, but I’m excited about the projects.
On Saturday, after helping the Cricket Club pull ivy from a dry stone wall, I waggled my fingers to get some mess off them, and my left thumb kind of… flew off? It clicked out of something, and now clicks all the time. But there’s no pain, so I’m getting that looked at by the NHS only when they’re really not busy. I believe it’s called Trigger Finger, which is a highly romantic name for such an irk. It does rather make me stop as I begin to autistically ‘flap’ (a trait of autistic people which I’ve done all my life without knowing what it was until Tom came along), which puts a little stumbling block in my day when it comes to thinking about anything with excitement. I find the darkness of autumn evenings all very dismal, but, as I think the above all shows, there are islands of light ahead.
To Be Continued
I know I said there’d be photos from something last week, but I ended up not going to that party. This coming Thursday is Biggest Meeting Ever, so, err, wish me luck!
And I hope I’ll see you all here again next week!
All the best for the big meeting! 😀