THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2025! It’s been another busy year for writer Paul Cornell who has dipped his toes into more pop cultural pools over the course of 2025 than most creators do in an entire career. The worlds of comics, graphic novels, podcasts, prose novels, non-fiction books, and even a new publishing venture have all been destinations he’s visited this year. With Thought Bubble imminent we caught up with Paul to chat about his big TB releases, the secret origin of his Commando issue, and the Bronze Age of Marvel Comics…
ANDY OLIVER: We have spoken about your graphic novel collaboration Who Killed Nessie? with Rachael Smith, out now from Avery Hill, before at Broken Frontier. But it’s one of the big new indie books that will be on sale at Thought Bubble this year. So let’s start by revisiting that project and asking you its wider themes beyond cryptozoological murder mystery?
PAUL CORNELL: I wanted to write something that was both cosy and charming (because I knew I was writing for Rachael Smith’s incredibly life-affirming art), but I also knew that she confronts the dark stuff too, so there’s a journey at the heart of the book, and it’s about a young woman recovering her confidence after a toxic relationship. She does this through being the only human in the building, and thus the only neutral arbiter, when an annual convention of fantastic beasts results in the titular lake monster homicide. I’m hugely proud of what we’ve made together. I think that’s my comic for the ages!
AO: Something I wasn’t expecting this year was to see your name alongside Steve Yeowell’s attached to an issue of venerable British comics institution Commando. How did that come about? And was there any specific inspiration for the rather different premise for the story?
CORNELL: You see, my nephew is a huge Commando fan and didn’t really see me as a proper writer until I’d done one. So I pitched one. (My nephew is a grown up builder.) I asked for Steve Yeowell because we’d worked on an Edgar Allen Poe’s Snifter of Terror strip, and his precision and grasp of historical detail are amazing. The story is based on what may or may not be a true story (sources differ these days over if it really happened), about someone who gets caught up by World War 2 and ends up being dragged almost all the way around the world, entirely against his will. I think it’s pretty powerful, and I loved learning the very specific rules for writing one of those digests.
AO: As a huge fan of the Bronze Age of comics I am particularly looking forward to your new book The Avengers Vs. the 1970s from Bloomsbury’s Marvel Age of Comics series. How involved was your research process for the book? Are there any particularly interesting discoveries or observations you made along the way that you can tease us with to pique reader interest?
CORNELL: What I attempted with this book was to examine the styles of the three main Avengers writers across the 1970s – Thomas, Englehart and Shooter – and note how they responded to the social mores of the times. I get to grips with their styles, in a way which I haven’t seen much of before, lit crit about mass market super hero comics, and talk about the moments they touch upon hot button issues. A ton of it is still relevant today. I think Steve Englehart’s depiction of the *then current real-life Vice President* as a full-on supervillain is jaw-dropping in its bravery, but the times were such that it went almost unremarked. These are lovely books, with full colour art reproduced throughout, so I also get to fanboy about my platonic ideal of a super hero action page (it’s from the Avengers/Defenders War). Basically, I’m hoping to please both nostalgia fans and those who enjoy pop culture critique!
AO: We all need to hear more about new comics publishing ventures so it’s exciting to hear of your involvement in one. What can we expect from Cosmic Lighthouse and what is its publishing ethos?
CORNELL: My new company with Lee Harris and Anthony Cronin, Cosmic Lighthouse, aims to publish (partnering with ComiXology) original graphic novels by bestselling Science Fiction and Fantasy prose writers, opening up their already-established novel series with new entries in comics form. Our first book, out next year, is Adrian Tchaikovsky’s prologue to his The Final Architecture series of novels, Salvation’s Child (above), with art from Mike Collins and the Bowlands on colour art and letters. It looks spectacular, and it’s wonderful that Adrian has actually written this himself, with no ghost writer involved. Plus, for Doctor Who fans, Sophie ‘Ace’ Aldred has given us her likeness rights, so she’s ‘playing’ Adrian’s army of cloned warriors The Partheni. All in all, it’s an attempt to bring full-on comics talent to the world of SF literature and vice versa! And we have many more projects in the planning stages!
AO: Outside of comics you have been busy in other media this year. What have reactions been like to your latest Lychford novel? And what can we expect next from your Telefantasy Time Jump podcast with Lizbeth Myles?
CORNELL: Gnomes of Lychford seems to be going down very well. I think, even though it’s the sixth book in my cosy rural fantasy series, it’s both the best and a very good jumping-on point, in that we explain the world immediately. Basically, the gnomes have been radicalised and start burning those little statues in human gardens. And Telefantasy Time Jump, where Liz and I look at a show or two from each year of SFF TV from 1953 onwards, is getting serious engagement, with lots of chat on our Patreon page, and TV historians pitching in and sending us stuff. We’ll be at 1963 around Thought Bubble, and you know what that means: Space Patrol!
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AO: And finally it’s obviously been another busy year for you but what can we look forward to from you in 2026? What’s coming next from Paul Cornell?
CORNELL: I’ve got a not-yet-announced creator-owned graphic novel coming out, and the official sequel to a classic novel, which also nobody knows about yet! Thanks for asking!
Visit Paul Cornell’s website here
Interview by Andy Oliver
PAul Cornell will be at Table D4 in the ComiXology Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2025 runs from November 1oth-16th with the convention weekend taking place on the 15th-16th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2025 coverage so far in one place here.
Poster by Ng Yin Shian
