"April hath put a spirit of youth in everything," and to mark the rebirth of the year, you can pick up a free Kindle copy of A Minotaur at the Savoy (US edition here) all this week. Yep, right up until Friday 13th. Good thing I'm not superstitious.Dear Prof Bromfield and Dr Clattercut
Recently I was taken by a friend to a restaurant in Fitzrovia. As we were settling down over whisky and cigars after the meal, I glanced at the menu and noticed that the à la carte listed Dodo Véronique. Intrigued as I was, I had by this time already put away a dozen oysters, the onion soup, a smoked haddock dish, two helpings of beef wellington, a lemon soufflé, a plate of almond biscuits, a bottle or two of Chateau Yquem and three large brandies. Also, I’d had a bit of a gyppy tummy earlier in the week, so at that stage I really didn’t feel up to fitting anything else in. I now rather wish I had, as I went for a bit of a walk to see if I could find the place again and there’s no sign of the street. I remember it had a little blue sconce of flame over the door, and a sort of curtain of ivory beads to keep the fog out. My friend has gone on a trip to Venezuela so no use asking him.Sincerely, Edward Plunkett, The Attican Club, Pall MallDr Clattercut replies: O rara avis in terris!
Prof Bromfield: Latin? You’ll have lost most of our readers right there, old man.
Dr Clattercut: I merely remarked on the pang of missed opportunity. Who knows how long before Mr Plunkett will again find himself in a restaurant with dodo on the menu?
Prof Bromfield: I doubt if there’s honestly any cause for regret. From what I hear, dodo is a tough, gamey sort of fowl. No use cooking it like chicken. Dodo meat is more like what you’d get on a year-old pheasant: tough if served pink, and dry if overcooked. Much more sensible to put it in a curry or a spicy Mexican dish. A Véronique sauce would be all wrong. There’s your explanation, Mr Plunkett – you can’t find the restaurant because it’s gone out of business.
Dr Clattercut: Perhaps the words of another rare bird, the Swan of Avon, will offer some consolation: “Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.”
Leo and I just got off a Skype call with Conor Kilpatrick of digital comic store Graphicly (also part of the iFanboy team), who had some exciting news about Graphicly's new across-the-board digital publishing wizard. This can take a comic like ours and convert it to multiple formats for Nook, Kobo, Kindle, iOS, and so on. It's kind of what Smashwords does with ebooks, Graphicly can now do with e-comics.
Following on from the preview of Mirabilis: Winter volume 2, here's news that should please anyone who found a Kindle under the Christmas tree. We've just re-released the Kindle mini-episodes collecting the first thirty pages of volume 1. If you're signed up for Amazon Prime you can borrow them anytime, but even if not you can grab the first two completely free tomorrow or Saturday. 
Leo and I do a whole bunch of work-for-hire jobs to finance the Mirabilis issues that are what we really care about. Because that's the life of a self-publishing comics team - not too dissimilar to bank robbers working in Starbucks to pay for the acetylene torches, I guess. But every so often we do at least get to work on something we're honestly passionate about. One such project is the Binscombe Tales series of weird tales that we're editing on behalf of Fabled Lands LLP.
Two more days remain of the under-a-dollar special offer on the Kindle edition of The Year of Wonders. The book comprises fifty fantasy vignettes in the form of correspondence sent from around the world to the Royal Mythological Society. Wondering what to do about a talking cow? Missing breakfast because fairies got at the milk? Turfed out of your local by pirates? Vexed by the problem of how to catalogue a chimera? Or at the mercy of the elements thanks to a levitating roof? Our boffins, armed with little practical experience but plenty of enthusiasm, are ready to advise on these and many other problems caused by the head-on collision of reality and fantasy. For example:Dear Doctor Clattercut and Professor Bromfield
I would expect you to be familiar with our village, as it is famous in a small way for having a sunken twin a little way out to sea. When I was a girl, I could stand on the cliffs and, with the wind in the right direction, it was possible to hear the tolling of the submerged church bell coming up out of the waves.
Now that things are as they are, our submarine neighbours no longer content themselves with the occasional ringing of a bell. Walking my dog along the beach, as often as not I will encounter a group of mermaids riding there. Their manners are polite, but I think there is some teasing in their glance and their ponies are mean little beasts, all shaggy with kelp and very high and briny to the nose. You know the smell when the tide goes right out; it's like that.
My concern, however, is the mermaids’ effect on our village. Twice a week, or Wednesdays and Saturdays, they come and sit on the beach with trinkets to sell. And I know where they get those trinkets. One of them had an ivory pipe that I recognized. It belonged to my grandfather, who was drowned at sea on my first day at junior school.Yours sincerely, Mabel Catchpole (Mrs), Dunwich
Dr Clattercut replies: An interesting case, Mrs Catchpole, and thank you for bringing it to our attention. I don’t know if I would consider what the mermaids are doing to be looting. Any knickknacks they find on the sea bed were, after all, irretrievably lost to us on dry land. One could argue they are performing a valuable service akin to marine salvage. Admittedly, however, there is a suggestion here of grave-robbing. What do you say, Bromfield?
Prof Bromfield: Hmm? Just thinking… Cabyll-ushteys, those sea ponies are called – that’s what they call them in the Isle of Man, anyway. They’re more than pesky. Get in trouble out swimming and they’ll drag you down and eat you up. All of you except the liver, funnily enough.
Dr Clattercut: I believe the Suffolk version is less outrightly murderous, though still a creature to be wary of. I was kicked by one while collecting trilobites at Aldeburgh two months ago and I still have a bruise. But just a moment – how do mermaids..?
Prof Bromfield: Side saddle, old chap.
There's just one more week for you to get yourself a copy of the Kindle edition of A Minotaur At The Savoy at the special offer price of 99 cents - in the US here, in the UK here, and in mainland Europe here.Dear sirs
You have heard the expression “a whirlwind romance” and I can attest that courtship truly can spin a person quite dizzy. Only a year ago, I was in Sicily with more thought of collecting archaeological specimens than of collecting a husband. And yet there at a little tavern overlooking the bay, a man at the next table sketched my portrait on his napkin and I could see at once that his eyes had found something beautiful in my poor plain thirty-year-old face. I shaded my eyes from the sun to look up at him. And like a Mediterranean storm, there it was, gentlemen: love.
We were wed soon after at his family church near Palma di Montechiaro, but my husband’s father does not approve of his choice of career as a painter, so to avoid daily arguments - which in Sicily can take on the proportions of a pitched battle - we returned to set up home in England, at a country estate left me by my uncle.
The estate has extensive grounds, and at first I was surprised at my husband’s enthusiasm for an activity so staid as gardening. But he said that the gardens would be his new canvas, and indeed his art found full expression there. When he is angry, the flower beds are violent with dark reds and brooding purples. When he is amused, the topiary bushes strike funny poses that have me laughing too. And when he is sad, the shrubbery droops and I seem to notice far more weeping willows about the lawn than at other times.
A wife frequently is left to guess at her husband’s moods, for men do not talk of their feelings even if they are Sicilian. Therefore I have come to rely on the garden’s visual cues to help me better understand his feelings and support him as a dutiful wife should. In the last week, however, the garden has changed in a way I do not recognize. The flowers are in full bloom, a thousand of them, so that everywhere one looks is a riot of passionate bright colours like the most heartfelt Impressionist painting. I have spoken of this with my young cousin Amanda, who recently came to stay with us, but though she has struck up quite a friendship with my husband she too is at a loss to explain what it all may mean.
With your wide experience of supernatural matters, I wonder if you are able to illuminate this mystery. For some reason it vexes me greatly, though why I cannot tell.
Yours faithfully, Mrs Rachel Sindona, High Wycombe
Prof Bromfield replies: Dear lady, do not allow your cousin to outstay her welcome. I will say no more.
As the green comet looms ever-nearer in the sky and the world gets stranger, the Fellows of the Royal Mythological Society (Cyril Clattercut and Bampton Bromfield; that's them above) are busy answering queries about extraterrestrial etiquette, fairy faux pas, and how to live with a minotaur next door. You can read their collected correspondence in A Minotaur At The Savoy, which for this month only is priced at just 99 cents for more than fifty mini-stories like this:Dear perfessors
I hope that you may help me with my Trouble and do not object to a letter from one as does not know you. I have the agreeable position of regular employment at a public house by the Strand, name of The Three Gypsies. My duties there in the main being the stabling of horses, polishing brasses, & co. I also do in the taprooms and some private bedrooms that are kept for travellers, though not so frequent as in former days, now that the coach stand is not there no more. In the morning I rake out the fires and carry the ashes in a pail, which I have been in the habit of tipping down the drain that is in the street near the entrance to the yard. Only the other morning I went out that way and saw what had the look of two sooty, or I should say ashen, footprints on the pavement outside. Scuffing at these with my foot had no effect to remove them, and thinking no more I went and poured the ashes down the drain as per usual. Then on the next day I found two bare feet standing there. Just the plain feet, you understand, and not with no body above them, the feet being grey and looking to my eye to be made of ashes. Subsequent to that, having visited the drain on my purpose some other times, the feet have now been joined by ankles and the lower part of the legs, that is the calf. Mr Bardley, him being the landlord, says not to be tipping the ashes that way no more, but I have become quite driven with Curiosity to find out what will come. Today I tipped out another pail of ashes and in the morrow I’m in expectation of a pair of knees. Do you gents think this is advisable, or is Mr Bardley right?Yours, Joe Gammock, Raven Row E1Dr Clattercut replies: Mr Gammock, I have no direct experience of exactly such a phenomenon as you describe, but I implore you to consider all the ways that it could turn out if you continue as you have. One does not have to be an avid reader of the works of Mr Bram Stoker to foresee something rather chilling. There are many bad endings to the story and few good ones.
Prof Bromfield: Hmm. You do not say as much in your letter, but I surmise that the pedal extremities in question are feminine, and reasonably shapely. For once I have to agree with Clattercut. If this goes on, Mr Gammock, I feel it could be a case of curiosity killing the cat.
It's the Fourth of July and there will be fireworks even here in London. To mark the occasion, Leo and I are knocking a whopping $4 off the price of the Kindle edition of The Year of Wonders for one month only. So that's fifty whimsical vignettes of green comety weirdness for just 99 cents. Dear human savants
Following a motion of no confidence in the prime minister, I find that my Martian Party has enough seats in the House of Commons to form a new government in coalition with the Liberal Unionists. The only sticking point is that, as you may know, my prospective allies are committed to a very specific agenda. Their three-point plan entails establishing a minimum wage, giving women the vote, and maintaining the unity of the British Isles - whereas the Martian Party is pledged to subjugate the planet Earth, replace corn with red weed as the staple carbohydrate dietary supplement, and ship a million slaves to the helium mines of Phobos.
As a compromise, I have agreed to defer mass enslavement for the term of the current Parliament, concentrating instead on domestic transport policy as an area of common ground on which our two parties can agree. For example, to alleviate the growing problem of “rush hour” congestion at the major London rail terminuses, we propose loading commuters onto massive catapults which will fling them across the city to land in collection nets near to their place of work. We estimate this would save at least seventy thousand man-months of labour per year. However, some of our advisors believe that it will not be a popular measure and could lose us votes at the next election. What do you counsel?
Yours, the Right Honourable Xangovar the Merciless, OBE, c/o the Palace of Westminster
Prof Bromfield replies: It would be very popular with small boys. Unfortunately, they don’t have the vote. Might be a better world if they did, if you ask me.
Dr Clattercut: Oh yes. Because resolving international disputes with conkers matches is obviously the way to go. Pulling girls’ pigtails when they demand enfranchisement. Declaring the whole of January a national tobogganing holiday. Making marbles the official currency of the Bank of England…
Prof Bromfield: You think you’re being wittily scathing, Clattercut, but in fact you’re just proving my point. So that’s what I’d suggest, Mr – er, Xangovar: shake up the Cabinet a little. Bring in some schoolboys and artists and poets and whatnot. Be more radical with your reforms, if anything. This is the Year of Wonders, so what’s wrong with sprinkling a bit of magic on the tired old machinery of politics? Trust me, the electorate will thank you for it.
Dr Clattercut: Those that land in the nets, anyway.
Now that the days are getting longer and warmer and the world is waking up, here's a letter from the RMS files for May 1901:Dear Professor Bromfield and Doctor Clattercut
It gets to being quite warm here in the valleys at this time of year, and for several months in the summer I do without my old boiler altogether. Only this year, see, the boiler’s still going and the cottage is as hot as a greenhouse, and if you find this note rather smudged and hard to read, that will be the literal sweat of my brow, dripping onto the page even with all the windows open.
The way of it is, some little being has taken up residence in the boiler. He says he’s the spirit of the hearth and refuses to go out. If I don’t bring him coal, he gathers up other bits to burn when I am asleep. I have already lost an occasional table, my dad’s old writing desk and the breadboard.
I don’t like to mention it to Pastor Richards as he’d make an awful fuss of anything like this with a bit of a pagan whiff to it. And perhaps after all it is a sort of household god. You can’t be too careful, can you? But if only it wasn’t so blasted hot, you see.Yours, Talfryn Jeavons, Kidwelly
Dr Clattercut replies: This type of creature - the genius loci, or spirit of a place - has been known since Roman times. They usually dwell in the chimney or fireplace and on the whole constitute a good bargain, as they protect the household and may even keep it spick and span, often for no more remuneration than a saucer of milk or a bit of cake.
Prof Bromfield: On balance, though, I think it’s safer to have no deity at all in your house. You never know when the damned thing will feel slighted. It may protect the house, after all, by deciding that you’re no longer a suitable resident.
Dr Clattercut: True, but I suspect that what Mr Jeavons has there is probably just a hob or brownie that has got into the boiler and decided to stay. They can be like squirrels and stray cats in that regard. A real household god usually starts its career as a ghost. At one time, builders used to sacrifice a lamb and put its body under the cornerstone in order to get the process started.
Prof Bromfield: Similar thing used to go on with new churchyards. Traditionally a stallion would be buried before any human graves went in. Then you get a hell horse, as they call it in Scandinavia - sort of a spectral guardian of the cemetery, if you like. It provides psychic protection in the same way that leaving a rabid dog running about in your garden will protect the house from burglars.
Dr Clattercut: At any rate, returning to the problem at hand: Mr Jeavons, if it is a brownie, all you need do is leave it a pot of ale. When it has become merry, fish it out of the boiler with iron tongs, demand that it tells you its true name, and then you will have complete command of it. Think of that; you will be able to set the precise temperature of your home merely by asking. I’d like to see modern technology achieve such a marvel.
Prof Bromfield: Hmm. If it is a true household deity, however, then the plan could backfire quite severely. And not in a metaphorical sense.
Believe it or not, this was our early mock-up for the cover of The DFC issue 34 (Jan 2009). I mean very early, when we first started planning Mirabilis in the pre-publication days before we had any idea what the comic was going to be like. Back then, Martin and I were probably envisaging a cross between 2000 AD and Strange Tales. (I mean the original 2000 AD and Strange Tales, of course, though being like the new ST would be cool too.)
In the event, DFC #34 had an absolutely superb cover by Andrew Wildman for Frontier. Whereas our Bedlam cover merely rewards you for already knowing about the accompanying story, that image of Daisy Adams and Mitch Seeker menaced by werecoyotes entices you to find out. The DFC editor, Ben Sharpe, must have thought we were a few bullets short of a sixgun for our suggestion, but I'm sure he was very polite in rejecting it. I do wish the real cover didn't have all that cluttering text and design element overload, though. Would you do that to a Wildman original? (You may say I'm not thinking like a kid, but my 9-year-old self had the exact same opinion about comic covers. That's another reason why in those days I followed Marvel rather than DC.)
Two of my favorite fantasy novels are Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell and Jack Vance's The Green Pearl. Both are very weighty tomes that suck you into richly detailed, immersive universes, and one of the techniques the authors use to do that is the liberal sprinkling of footnotes. These serve as little asides, often mini-stories in their own right, that you can dip into to get a sense of the broader world behind the action of the novel.
While adapting the first 8 issues of the Mirabilis comic book for iPad, iBookstore and Kindle, I'm not neglecting the whimsical correspondence of the Royal Mythological Society that features on the comic's letters pages. These missives show the kind of things that are going on around the world as the ever-nearing Comet Meadowvane strikes a great green line through every rule of science, reason and logic. There's a whole book's worth already - and more coming in all the time - which makes them ripe for packaging up as an ebook.
After the app and epub versions, of course the Kindle had to be next on our list. So here is the first issue of Mirabilis in MOBI format. Creating this version meant chopping the pages of issue #1 into two hundred separate images (one panel per page in most cases) and then converting them to grayscale and crunching them down to a size the device can handle. Yet, as the picture above shows, the spark of genius in Leo's, Martin's and Nikos's work still shines through.
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