DEE FOR DETECTIVE

Like a colossus waking from frozen sleep on board a slow ship Corvus Press stirs. Yes the crow is back! 

After a year of low profile striving, the rookery is once again ringing to the scratch of quill on parchment! 

There are a number of events planned for 2014 and the first is that the long awaited arrival of a Dee for Detective story. After decades of research and years of painstakingly piecing a ripsnorter of a plot together John Dee, the original 007 is here!

And there’s even an app link.

Dee for Detective will be serialised in Tripwire as of the next edition - out the second week in February. The graphic novel will be published in 2015.

And this is only the start. Keep watching for even more exciting news…

SCARDIFF PHOTOS

Here are the photographs we took at Scardiff yesterday. We had a fun day and it was nice to chat to all the zombies.

DR DEE ROCKS!

Yowser! Yowser1 Yowser!

Just look at this page from the Corvus Horror Special! Dr. Dee smites a critter from another reality! Exciting init?

And whats more - if you are at Scardiff then you will have the chance to purchase this unique publication. it will only be available for one day at Scardiff. Be there or seriously miss out on the most horrific thing that you could read this year...

SCARDIFF: THE COVER!

Not only is the cover of our one off special magazine for Scardiff, but it is a nod to a famous song. The first person to tell us what song this cover image refers to will win a bumper bundle of Corvus goodies!

Leave your answers in the comments section and the first correct one will win some good swag.

See you in Scardiff!!!

SCARDIFF SPECIAL!!!

wE  shall see YOU at Scardiff in October!

and for this one show we have created a one off special magazine- That is ONLY available at the Convention.

Over the coming weeks we shall be previewing pages from the magazine. To give you a taster here is a draft of the cover-it has changed though into something far more frightening.

wAtch this sPace...

SCARDIFF

HELLo!

It may look like we have given up the GHOST-but FEAR not, we will be back and the return starts on 27th October in Cardiff.

Not only is Corvus involved in the planning of SCARDIFF- we shall also be producing a one off special, that will only be available at SCARDIFF.

More details to come, but in the MEANtime click here for all the DEPRAVED details of SCARDIFF.

Watch this space...

TRIPWIRE

Joel Meadows, creator and editor of TRIPWIRE magazine which  has been at the forefront of the indie comics, TV and film review market. The magazine has gathered a number of awards and has some heavyweight fans including Ian Rankin, Michael Moorcock and Christopher Fowler. He's also found his way inside such places as Henson's Creature Workshop and Industrial Light and Magic. To mark the 21st anniversary of the magazine, Joel is publishing TRIPWIRE 21 a lavishly illustrated celebration with classic features, all-new content and new artwork by Mike Mignola, Frank Quitely, Howard Chaykin and many others. Do have a look at his pitch and pledge if you want to see the book become a reality. I know we do.

Cardiff International Comic & Animation EXpo 2013

Sadly we shall not be leaving the rookery this year to take part in the wonderful Comic Expo. However this does not mean that you need not attend. this is the best Expo in the Galaxy and you need to be there or you will be severely cuboid.

A word of warning-most of the tickets are sold out-but there will be a few available on the door-so get yourself down to the best comic expo this side of Aldebaran.

We will be back next year...

TAKING STOCK

Here at the stews, in the rookery, as it snowed, we have reflected. There are a number of facts, like physics, that we cannot escape from. The sort that you cannot get around, no matter how you try, logic drags you back to earth screaming.

After great deliberation and heart searching, we have decided that we need to use 2013 as a period of consolidation and we will not be at any of the conventions or expos. There are a number of reasons for this principally that it is taking us longer to produce our titles than we had estimated. There have been other reasons, the death of the computer housing much of our resource material did not help for example, but essentially our heads have outpaced our hands.

We are also reducing the frequency of blog posts. For the next year we shall be posting on the first Thursday of each month only. For those of you on the mailing list; we shall be sending out quarterly newsletters with some interesting things attached. Watch this space as they say.

Expect us back in 2014, large as life and fecund with promise.

A CO2 STORY FOR YOU

That’s right! How often does someone give you something for nothing in this world? Well here at the Rookery we are delighted to begin the New Year by giving you a story you can download onto your Kindle or i-pad. Follow this link and you can access the download.

Do let us know what you think of it. We are always interested in your thoughts and opinions. 

STEAM PUNK CHRISTMAS STORY

This week steam punk czar Tim Hart offers a Christmas tale - enjoy...

So rather than the standard blog post I shall treat you to a small short piece of Victoriana fiction I call. ‘Gideon’s Christmas’.

The Notebook of Domonick McWater December 18^th 1884.

So currently I am investigating in Bristol town in a warm establishment called ‘The Filling Station’ and the sense of the season is certainly rife. Pine fills the room and the mulled wine is pungent and aromatic. I myself have taken residence near the front door to observe the comings and goings of the patrons; every time the door opens I feel the cold bit my unexposed skin like a vengeful rat. But I do not mind, for it is the Yuletide season and I can for a maybe a brief moment think of what it will be like back at home in a week at the family house. Christmas was something I missed greatly on my stint in the Middle East studying the Mythologies and Occult things. The desert gets cold at night l can tell you different. Books and Dutch gin can keep you warm for only so long. A pretty girl can help, but sadly Jezebel was tavern owners daughter and lived up to her Biblical namesake.

But I digress; now the good Lord blesses us with sights that can only be parts of Heaven spilling into our world. A Rhubarb coloured sunset or the sound of the woodlands when the storm has halted. But as I looked out the window into the gas lamp streets and falling flakes of snow I noticed something. Among the carolers and markets stalls selling all manner of festive treats I saw Gideon. Now I must explain that Gideon isn’t a person, inasmuch as an automaton. He is specifically a Mark 3 BarrowBot made in Sheffield. But if you look carefully you can see his Identification plate, which is covered acid burned numbers, shows he is the first off the production line. Now these Automaton are special my friends, because to collectors they are worth a fortune, but old Tobias Ellis would have him working and takes rather a liking to the Barrowbot he named after his father.

But in the gloom amidst the sounds of the carolers  he is being accosted, not by the criminal element (none would risk, BarrowBots are designed to lift crates and to snap a human limb would impress a swan), but by the public. Workmen are coming up and shaking his hand and slapping him on his back, young ladies are running up to him and kissing him on his face plate and running away giggling and small children are pressing Christmas cards into his merchandise tray.

I look out at Gideon and for a moment try to understand. Psychology is a big part of what we do at the Agency you see. For Gideon, he must wonder quite what is going on. The strange human thing they call Christmas. People are being nice to each other; they do not bicker and argue. They smile more, something which Gideon cannot do as his mouth is a slot. The most curious of all is the sense of oneness, people are united in a common cause, to spread cheer and celebrate the birth of the Baby Jesus. Gideon looks at the cards he has been given and will put them up in his recharging station to consider later who this Jesus fellow is and why he is so important.  

And in the soft yellow light of the streets I make eye contact with him through the window and he waves at me. The gears turn and pneumatics hiss as his hand gently sways from side to side.

I return the gesture with a raised glass in toast and a nod of the head. I must talk to him tomorrow; he’s one of my best informants in the Southwest.

So I finish with one thought, Humans are curious creatures and frankly I wouldn’t have them any other way.

Merry Christmas 

PLYMOUTH SIDEWAYS

Bit strange this but the photographs I took at Plymouth are staying sideways, I turned them on my computer but they appear to want to stay sideways when posted-sorry about this (sorry's not good enough-Ed).

Anyway here are the rest of the photographs. Anyone knows how to move them around then let me know.