It’s been my good fortune to have known m’colleague Ben Aaronovitch for a few years now, starting back in the 2000’s when he and I worked on an abortive revival of the sci-fi TV series Blake’s 7. There’s something lovely about watching a friend get the recognition they deserve, and seeing Ben’s brilliant Rivers of London urban fantasy police procedural series take off and thrive has been great!
If you haven’t checked them out, give them a spin. In the novels, a young copper named Peter Grant stumbles on a crime like no other when a ghost comes forward as a witness – and pretty soon, Peter is deep in a hidden world of magic and myth simmering away beneath the everyday reality of police work. Nine books and a handful of novellas and short stories later, the series is still going strong.
Urban fantasy isn’t usually my thing, but Ben put a twist on it that hooked me in, and when he expanded his fictional universe into comics, I read along with them. I’d been making my own inroads into the world of comics writing with a few stories for the long-running war title Commando, and I wanted to do more – so when Ben suggested I might pitch something in an action-forward mode set in the world of Rivers of London, I was on board.
I had a handful of elements; a Metropolitan Police helicopter fighting a dragon (I played with a similar idea in a kaiju story a few years earlier); London’s Centre Point tower as a key location; and an urban legend about how rock star Jimi Hendrix was secretly responsible for London’s population of wild parakeets. Putting these together, something began to gel – and it became Here Be Dragons.
As one of the Met’s few official magic-users, Peter Grant 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 turns out to be more mythological than extra-terrestrial…
Issue #1, “Crash Landing”, is out now, beginning a four-issue miniseries published by Titan Comics.
Written by me, with guidance from Ben, script editor Andrew Cartmel (Doctor Who, The Vinyl Detective series) and senior editor David Leach (Death’s Head, Warhide), the story features some fantastic interior art by José María Beroy (Deadman, Star Trek, Heavy Metal) and a series of terrific alternate covers by David M. Buisán (Star Wars Adventures, Doctor Who) and V. V. Glass (Kamen Rider Zero One, Blade Runner: Black Lotus)!
Next week, I’ll be posting a blog of annotations and references for the first issue, so stay tuned for that…
Issue #1 of Rivers of London: Here Be Dragons is out now in all good comic stores and via Titan Comics direct. Issue #2 arrives on August 9th and is available for pre-orders!
