Abaddon Open Subs Month: my submission, EE Richardson
15th May 2017
I finally joined Twitter in 2012, late to the party as ever, because I wanted to keep up with what was going on in the world of comics.
By a happy coincidence, that was exactly the right time to learn that 2000 AD’s publisher Rebellion were looking for novella subs for their Abaddon Books line. I’d written some young adult horror novels when I was younger and wanted to expand into writing for adults, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a punt.
I checked out Abaddon’s existing series to see what kind of stories were in my wheelhouse that might also be in theirs. They warned up-front that it would be an uphill battle to pitch a new series rather than write in an existing world, which I cheerfully ignored. The horror-ish, urban fantasy-ish stories they published weren’t entirely my jam – I lack the zombie appreciation gene, and I’m not too big on gods and mythology – so I figured I’d try to pitch something that their line was missing: a grounded urban fantasy where magic was real, but there were no monsters, only human beings and the dangers they created.
That led me to the idea of shapeshifters who weren’t typical werewolves, but transformed using skins – and the police department in charge of regulating those shapeshifting skins, and all other kinds of ritual magic.
And that – after much frantic scribbling of magic- and police-related terms to come up with a good name – was how the Ritual Crime Unit was born.