Talking With Paul Cornell And Rachel Smith About Their ‘Who Killed Nessie?’ Crowdfunder

Who Killed Nessie is a new and fun-looking murder mystery with a difference by Paul Cornell and Rachael Smith. As the title suggests, it involves a very strange murder of a legendary monster and everyone – all of the cryptids themselves – are in the frame for murder! Covered in some detail here by Richard Bruton, he threw the baton to me to follow up with a chat with these UK-based creators.

Olly MacNamee: The obvious first question about Who Killed Nessie is its inception. How was this fun-looking book first conceived?

Paul Cornell: In conversation between me and Rachael.  We’ve wanted to work together on something full-length for the longest time, and I love cryptids, and I said murder mystery, and she said monsters, and the title Who Killed Nessie? swam into view, and I could immediately see the cover, with a chalk outline of where the Loch Ness Monster had been, and how perfect Rachael’s art would be for this, and off we went!

Rachael Smith: That cover was so fun to draw! That conversation I had with Paul was super fun too, it was kind of magical how the idea came together. Paul is a great person to bounce ideas off of!

MacNamee: So, a comedic murder mystery of monstrous proportions then, and featuring an array of cryptids and other fantasy folk. I know you were the writer on this, Paul, but did you and Rachael ever swap ideas on the kind of creatures you both wanted to include? And, any that didn’t make the cut?

Cornell: Oh, absolutely, and she provided loads!  None has been excluded, because to start listing who is and isn’t at this convention of cryptids would cut down on the suspects.

Smith: There are going to be a lot of Japanese yokai which I just adore. My favourites are the tsukumogami – items that are over 100 years old that have become sentient. On the cover you can see some of them in the form of cups and glasses.

MacNamee: Lindsay Grockle is the graphic novel’s main character. She’s just taken up a position as a hotel manager in the Great Lakes on the weekend a convention is in town. A convention for cryptids where a murder has occurred. But, I believe this is more than just a whodunnit.  Tell us more about Lindsay’s personal growth over the course of the graphic novel.

Cornell: Lindsay is getting over a break-up with a poetic sort who said she didn’t have enough belief in her very rational soul.  But now she needs all her rationality to solve a murder… except it’s a murder amongst creatures she didn’t believe in until this morning.  Isn’t that just everyone’s life?  Aren’t we all called upon, at some point, to solve the murder of the Loch Ness Monster?  I know I’ve been.

Smith: I already feel such a kinship with Lindsay. I’m really looking forward to bringing her to life.

MacNamee: It’s also a campaign that has rather prestigious fans. How did you get Joe Hill (Locke and Key) onboard to read your new book? 

Cornell: He hasn’t read it, he just saw the Zoop page and declared we’d made it especially for him! I’ve told him I’ll send him a copy!

MacNamee: Were there many personal challenges to producing this book? Either on the writing front or the art?

Cornell: Obviously I had to get over my fear of the Skunk Ape.  No, I’ve been immersed in cryptids since I was a kid reading books about the mysteries of the world, which were much more fun and less fascist than they are now, but then wasn’t everything? So I didn’t need to do much research about, for example, my personal favourite, the Mongolian Death Worm.

Smith: I’m a little nervous about drawing the kraken…and there are some cryptids that I’m super scared of but I don’t want to say who because… SPOILERS!

MacNamee: Lastly then, onto the campaign. Zoop seems to be a crowdfunding platform that’s beginning to be favoured more and more by comic book creators. Why did you two decide on Zoop?

Cornell: I’d used them before on The Complete(d) Saucer Country, and found they really delivered in terms of fulfillment (as it’s called, I love that, that you can hire someone to provide that) and sorting out all the tricky bits about crowdfunding.  Also, they keep us honest.  Backers will get regular updates, after we’re funded, on how the project is going and how fast we’re working.    

MacNamee: Rachael, Paul, thanks for your time, and all the best with the campaign.

You can back the campaign on Zoop here now.