Jump into the pages of a graphic novel set in King’s Cross

The resulting graphic novel gleefully blurs the lines between realities of the real world and what Chebaane calls “speculative fiction”, allowing him to run away with ides for fantastical things that could possibly have gone on in this unique setting. The plot of the book revolves around renovation of a historic property and was written while Henry was transforming a small but historic Argyle Square townhouse into boutique hotel The Gyle.

His work on concept interior designs has taken him from India to Iceland, but it is in King’s Cross, and the various hotels in The Megaro Collection, that you can best seen his fanatical attention to detail and storytelling.

Readers of The Panharmonion Chronicles can visit the real world locations from the story, from local landmarks like the mysterious Lighthouse building, to Henry’s alchemical subterranean cocktail bar Hokus Pokus.

Meanwhile, he’s blurred the lines between fiction and life further, by composing and releasing an LP of electronic music under the name LX8, which also happens to be the artist name of the protagonist musician in the novels.

“A lot of people rush about here with their heads in a mobile phone, dashing into the tube or whatever, so they miss the rich history all around them,” says Henry. “I wanted to mix up the physical spaces with virtual and fictional ones to reveal more about the neighbourhood to all. For example, researching Arglye Square in the British Library, I discovered the site of a former church built for a religious cult in 1844 that took a direct hit during Word War 2, plus a mountain of ash and bones that apparently was once pile up here. There are very few public records about it; a watercolour, a couple of engravings and tales of street urchins sifting through it, but that creates such and interesting mystery. With the hotels ad in my books, rising from these ashes, interesting new things can emerge.”