Dad always bought me comics, and his purchase of Avengers Weekly rather changed my life. I opened them, and found all sorts of exciting things. My older brother, off in Australia, left sealed boxes of SF books and magazines in the loft. How were you introduced to genre fiction and comics? We’ve got a one-off issue coming up that involves fairies, which I’m very proud of, and then we go into a three-parter set on the day of the election, when Arcadia finally finds out if she’s going to become President. I wanted to write about my life-long interest in UFO mythology: how varied and interesting it is, how much a reflection of American life.

Moving on…Īs an original series, what inspired Saucer Country, and what plans do you have for the series in the next few months and/or year? That is very sad news, as Demon Knights was one of the stand-out New 52 titles, thanks in large part to Cornell’s scripts.

Well, I’ve left Demon Knights, so I see that going exciting places under a new writer… You are also a comics writer, recently working on Saucer Country (Vertigo) and Demon Knights (DC).Īs part of the larger DC Universe, how have you approached Demon Knights, and where do you see the story going in the future? Writers are just the ones who carefully write it down rather than forget. It was an idea I'd had for the longest time, and I wanted to find a way to talk about modern life through fantasy.

What inspired you to write the novel? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general? It is indeed part of a series, but a single case is closed in every book. It’s “The Wire do Buffy”, a modern day London Metropolitan Police undercover team gain, accidentally, the ability to see the monsters and the magic, and decide, after freaking out for a while, that they have to use real police methods against it. How would you introduce the novel to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

I thought we’d start with your fiction: Your latest novel, London Falling, was recently published by Tor. I’m deeply suspicious of agreement in any form. I’m a writer because I failed at being a scientist. Let’s start with something relatively straight-forward: Who is Paul Cornell? In this interview, we learn more about Paul’s writing, his thoughts on genre, and I also discover that he’s no longer writing one of my favourite series… With the release of his latest novel, London Falling, I thought it would be a perfect time to ask him about some of his recent work. Paul Cornell has written some great comics ( Demon Knights and Saucer Countrymost recently, but also Action Comics and more), as well as for Dr Who and other fiction.

Demon Knights, Volume 1 by Paul Cornell