The first issue of Here Be Dragons is out now, the start of a four-part miniseries written by me and published by Titan Comics. Set in the world of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London – part urban fantasy, part modern-day police procedural – in this story Ben’s protagonist Peter Grant, one of the Met’s few official magic-users, is called in to investigate a series of UFO sightings over London.
But as events unfold – and as the title suggests! – the danger in the skies may be more mythological than extra-terrestrial…
Working in my friend Ben’s fictional universe was an absolute blast, and with each issue in the Here Be Dragons series I’ll be posting an “author’s commentary” piece to highlight and annotate some of the concepts that appear in the comics.
Spoiler Warning! These notes give away story points from issue #1 of Rivers of London: Here Be Dragons and other stories from the Rivers series!
Issue #1’s story is “Crash Landing”, which takes its title (as do all four issues of Here Be Dragons) from songs by Jimi Hendrix; it’s also apt considering how the issue ends!
Chronologically, Here Be Dragons takes place after the events of the Rivers of London novel Amongst Our Weapons and the comic miniseries Monday Monday.
P.2 – In the opening scenes, Peter Grant visits the Metropolitan Police’s Air Support Unit at Lippitts Hill Camp, and like all the locations in the comic, it’s a real place. Peter meets Daniel “Scully” Philo, a devotee of UFO phenomena, whose nickname references FBI agent Dana Scully of The X-Files – even if Danny feels he’s more like her partner, truth-seeker Fox Mulder. Danny refers to the unconventional work of Peter Grant and The Folly (the Met’s HQ for all things magical) as “weird bollocks”, a recurring description from the novels.
P.4 – As Danny’s disdain for anything to do with a certain boy wizard shows, he firmly believes that all things uncanny clearly have an alien origin, not a magical one. Peter refers to Blackstone’s Policing manuals, the real-life guidebooks used by British police officers. We also get our first look at a Met Police helicopter, one of the EC-145 Eurocopters familiar to everyone who lives in London.
P.5 – Danny’s also a Star Trek fan, as his reference to Spock’s telepathic mind-meld ability shows. Peter name-drops Godzilla in his conversation with his boss Thomas Nightingale, a subtle nod to an upcoming kaiju encounter later in the comic. Peter’s “Roger Roger” sign-off might be a play on the stock response from the Battle Droids in the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
P.6 – The Camden Assembly is a real pub in Chalk Farm, suggested by Ben as the location for this scene. They do a really nice triple cheeseburger.
P.7 – Fey princess Silinea and her fellow troublemakers attempt to play the part by using a local dialect known as Multicultural London English (MLE), and she references the TV show Top Boy as an example featuring characters who speak it. There’s also a nod in there to the UK’s long-running “Compare the Meerkat” ad campaign.
P.8 – Pilot Maggie Bird is established as former Royal Air Force aircrew, having flown Chinook troop-transport helicopters in Afghanistan. Chinooks are nicknamed “Wokkas” by British soldiers because of the distinctive noise made by their dual rotors, an effect known as ‘Blade Slap’ – hence the reference on Maggie’s coffee mug.
P.9 – Danny’s pose as he explains his sighting to Peter might remind you of a certain guy in an internet meme about “aliens”. From Sanjay Patel’s response, he’s clearly not a fan of cartoon dog Scooby Doo.
P.10 – Sanjay refers to the white bellies of migrating geese in flight reflecting light and causing UFO sightings; this is an actual documented phenomenon! Danny references several well-known historical UFO sightings: the Rendlesham Forest incident in 1980, the 1964 Lonnie Zamora sighting in Socorro, New Mexico, and the notorious Black Triangle UFOs observed from the late 1980s to early 2000’s. He also name-checks a few of the best UFO movies, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Independence Day and Attack The Block (which is also set in London).
P.11 – Peter’s mention of dealing with a werewolf is a call-back to the comic miniseries Rivers of London: Monday Monday. He also paraphrases the opening lines of H.G. Welles’ classic alien invasion novel The War of the Worlds.
P.12 – “Saint Freddie” refers to Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the rock band Queen, who performed the song ‘It’s A Kind of Magic’. Busker Mick Spooner plays ‘Crosstown Traffic’, from the 1968 album Electric Ladyland by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Hendrix briefly lived in the city and he’s widely regarded as an honorary Londoner. The creature’s “heat-vision” is inspired by the alien hunter’s point-of-view from the movie Predator.
P.13 – The Spanish tourist couple saying ¿Qué fue esa cosa? is asking “What was that?” They pop up several times in this issue.
P.14 – Peter refers to the popular low-cost budge airline EasyJet and the police helicopter Blue Thunder from the movie and TV show of the same title. Peter’s colleague Sahra Guleed mentions actress Sigourney Weaver in an oblique reference to the movie Aliens (because Ben Aaronovitch has virtually made it mandatory that there must be an Aliens reference in a Rivers of London story), and Peter also quotes a couple of lines from Top Gun. The “movie quote swear jar” is an actual thing, a rule enforced at the real Top Gun training school in the USA.
P.15 – Peter asks if the helicopter has whisper mode or chain guns, once again referencing fictional super-copters Blue Thunder and Airwolf. Fun fact: the Met Police’s air support unit flew the Bell 222 in the 1980s, the same model of helicopter as Airwolf.
P.20 – During the attack on the helicopter, Peter thinks of his wife (and river goddess) Beverly Brook, and their twin girls Taiwo and Kehinde, who first appear in the comic Monday Monday.
P.21 – “Brace for crash landing!” = Title drop!
Issue #2 of Rivers of London: Here Be Dragons arrives on August 9th; more details here at Titan Comics.
