Paul Cornell

WHEN PAUL Cornell is not busy writing episodes of hit British television drama series and authoring popular novels he is making a name for himself in the comic book world, as noted on this site when he was featured on Speech Balloons regarding events in Captain Britain and MI: 13 taking place in Birmingham.

After contributing to British fanzines, Paul Cornell entered and won a Young Writers' competition that saw his Kingdom Come screened on BBC2. He then focussed on children's television, before branching out to contribute to the supernatural series Springhill and briefly contributed to the classic award-winning British soap opera series Coronation Street.

Cornell appears to have a predisposition for writing about doctors having established his early career on Children's Ward and in recent years writing episodes for three BBC medical dramas: Casualty, Holby City and Doctors. However, the character his name has been most associated with - albeit linked to the medical profession by only one word- is Doctor Who.

To date he has written six Doctor Who novels, three audio books and the animated internet adventure Scream of the Shalka, comic strips for Doctor Who Magazine, plus novels and audio books featuring Bernice Summerfield, a spin-off character from one of his Who books.
He was also involved in the overwhelmingly positive revival of Dr Who to the small screen, and was responsible for scripting Father's Day; the episode was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form in 2006, and reached third place.

The scriptwriter contributed to BBC1's new Robin Hood series and ITV's science fiction series Primeval . Aside from two mainstream science-fiction novels published so far, he has also written non-fiction books about television, and seen a career in comics slowly begin to bloom.

In the UK, aside from the aforementioned, and perhaps obligatory, Dr Who Magazine, Cornell has contributed stories to the Judge Dredd Megazine. While for America's Marvel Comics he wrote the six issue Wisdom series, and is scripting the aforementioned Captain Britain and MI:13 as an ongoing title whose next story arc is titled Vampire State and will feature no less than Dracula as the major foe. At BICS events he has also hinted at yet another comic book title from Marvel, but as yet which one remains a pretty close-guarded secret.

For more information on Paul Cornell visit: www.paulcornell.blogspot.com