Category Archives: Hopeless

Hopeless

Hopeless with Sloths

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The photo comes from last weekend’s Thought Bubble in Yorkshire. For those of you unfamiliar with it, this is a massive comics convention. Intimidatingly so. Thankfully, Nic from Sloth Comics is very good at this sort of thing and takes Sloth to all kinds of big events. That’s Nic in the photo, the one at the table who is wearing a not-preposterous hat. 

Survivors is not long out in the world. There were a few people who came to the table looking for the last book in the series. There were of course a lot more people who had never heard of any of it, but were curious. One chap bought The Gathering on the first day and then came back on the second day and bought all the other books as well. He made me particularly happy.

Hopeless is in good company at Sloth Comics. On the fantasy side, there’s also Erika and the Princes in Distress, the Penny Blackfeather books and the wonderfully wicked Goblins series. Nic likes a bit of twisted humour (evidently). We’re the darkest thing on his table, but I feel we fit in well nonetheless. 

Quite a few of the Sloth Comics titles are in translation from French, this being something Nic specialises in. If the elder gods align and the stars are benevolent, perhaps one day it will be possible to get Hopeless into France. It’s been a longstanding daydream, and it’s not wholly unthinkable. This isn’t about an overwhelming desire to be paid in cheese although… cheese… nor is it entirely about wanting an excuse to swan around a few French comics conventions, where my half forgotten A-Level French is likely to do me more harm than good. France is a country that takes its graphic novels seriously, and it would be very cool to be there.

So at some point when the moon is bright and we’re in good voice for howling, there might have to be a ritual sacrifice of camembert to whatever unnatural forces preside over international publishing opportunities.

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There are Survivors

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The final book in the graphic novel series is now out, and available from online retailers. In theory you can order it from places that do books and comics as well. You also have a short at getting copies directly from Sloth Comics at events, and anywhere else you see people doing Hopeless things.

If you are the sort of person who doesn’t like to commit to a series until it’s complete, this is your moment! There are books set after the series (as yet unpublished) and a couple set before (published by Outland Entertainment) but the series stands alone.

The story told through the graphic novels follows young experimental occultist Salamandra, as she gets to grips with the implications of having power. The story is about friendship and community, what we might do for each other, and what happens when power over others, and fear of others dominates. I have a lot of things to say about why certain ways of trying to do things just don’t work, and this is pretty explicit in the last book where I go deeper into those power and control themes. 

The graphic novel series was how the Hopeless, Maine project began. It’s been the core of it for many years, and the reason for the other projects. However, my impression at this point is that there are a lot of people who enjoy Hopeless things, including getting to play with the setting. For as long as that continues to be true (and I should clarify that it is Nimue writing this blog) I will keep holding spaces and creating opportunities to do Hopeless things. I’m open to exploring any direction anyone wants to go on. 

If people want more stories, I will write more stories. If anyone else wants to write stories, that would be great. Any and all creative expressions are very welcome, so get in touch if you have something you’d like to share.

Hopeless

Unreasonably Hopeless Magic

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Out there in the more sensible regions of the world, there’s a coherence to how things work. Maybe it’s the world view of Catholicism, with angels, demons and getting things done in Latin. Maybe what works is folklore, and sacrificing people inside wicker men. In some places, what works is science, or mad science. Fantastical things tend to have their own rules.

In many ways, Hopeless, Maine is a chaos magic setting. Things work because people invest energy and belief in them. It’s not the system anyone uses that matters, it’s the will, faith and intention that get things done. Witchcraft works. Medicine would work if Doc Willoughby wasn’t such a heady mix of evil and incompetence. You really do need to be very good at belief to be cured of anything by him. Balthazar Lemon’s belief in the marvels of engineering enabled him to build a lighthouse out of the corpse of a massive sea monster. Durosimi’s belief in vampirism allowed him to become such a creature.

There’s no obvious system for working out what will happen when one set of ideas clashes with another. That is however also true in real life. This is also how we end up with people building complex devices and then shoving demons into them. It’s impressive that anyone believes this is a good idea, all things considered, but faith has never really been about reasoned positions.

Religion on the island tends to be less effective overall. This is because the place has its own presiding self-styled deity, and that ‘god’ is a jealous god, and would not tolerate anything or anyone else getting a serious hold on the place. Reverend Davies can hold up his symbols to ward off the vampires, but this is as far as his belief can take him. As for whose reverend he truly is, that would be a question for another day.

(Text Nimue Brown. Art Tom Brown with colouring by Nimue Brown.)

Hopeless

Once Upon a Hopeless Maine

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This week we have some happy book news as one of our previous projects is now more widely available. 

Once Upon a Hopeless Maine is the brainchild of Keith Errington. This is an evil sort of brainchild, and terribly, horribly funny. Tom Brown did the line drawing for the illustrations, Nimue Brown did the colours. Like all children’s books, it’s a cheery brightly coloured thing. Unlike most children’s books, some of the brightly coloured things are the people the central protagonist has murdered.

Originally there was a kickstarter to put this out into the world. It seemed like a cunning plan to put it on Amazon, from whence it may be acquired by anyone who finds they need a copy.

On the whole this is not a book for children. Although there was one child – already a fan of Drury the skeletal dog – who got his mitts upon it, read the whole thing with a look of utter glee upon his small face and insisted his father buy him a copy. If you know one of *those* children, you may want to get them a copy. If you choose to encourage and support their murderous inclinations, you of course do so at your own risk.

You may have that sort of inner child. We’re not judging you. Of course we aren’t – having made this little book of slaughter, it would seem unreasonable to judge anyone for buying it. Those pennies we get in Amazon royalties definitely won’t go on buying some new knives or a really good spade. Why would we need a spade? It’s not like anyone has bodies to hide or anything.

Hopeless

There were no Survivors

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Many bookselling sites had Hopeless, Maine vol 5 – Survivors – listed as coming out on the 12th July. It didn’t. I (Nimue) wish to apologise for this and for promoting a book that wasn’t actually available. 

The short explanation for how I came to be promoting a book that could not possibly come out on this date, is lack of communication. 

Our lovely publisher – Sloth Comics – is a small house. As a house they’ve done absolutely everything they could for the Hopeless, Maine project including spotting that there was a problem and that I hadn’t been kept up to date. They’ve had their own struggles this year, and with rather a lot of their own stuff to deal with, they assumed that I would be in the loop for what was, and wasn’t happening with the book. This was unfortunate, but understandable. They have my profound gratitude. I thank Nic at Sloth for his patience, kindness and support, and for his promise to get Survivors out in October.

If you have already pre-ordered the book, my thanks for your support and faith, and for your patience and understanding. 

Hopeless

Clutching the book

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So here we are in Gloucester with a hard copy of the Outland book that comprises of New England Gothic (by Nimue) and The Oddatsea (Keith). Just for context, Nimue was being a Drag King In Yellow at the time, hence the uncharacteristically bright suit and the beard.

We were able to get our mitts upon this book because fabulous Mark Hayes admitted to owning a copy. On discovering we’d never seen a print version of this book he very kindly brought it along, and took some photos.

New England Gothic has Annamarie Nightshade as the main character and is set before the graphic novels. It explores her early life, her complicated friendships with Reverend Davies and Durosimi, and pokes about in island witchcraft.

The Oddatsea also has Annamarie Nightshade as a character, but centres on some new folk Keith has brought to the island, one of them in a submarine. No, that doesn’t really protect you either. 

These two books can be bought individually, along with other goodies over here – https://hopeless-maine.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

The shiny Outland edition is generally available from places online that sell books. If you have one, or buy one, we love seeing photos of books in the wild.

Hopeless

A plump, hearty stocking

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Now that spade up Sunday is behind us, many of you will be cultivating black eyed meese ahead of your festive preparations. If you missed the traditional gathering day, there’s still plenty of time to go rooting about under hedgerows and anywhere else dank that hasn’t entirely frozen over. You may end up with smaller meese, but you may still consider it worth the effort!

You may be tempted to feed them bones, gristle or even worms – there’s always someone who feels the urge to try a wider diet than is recommended. There are reasons for the recommended feeding of meese. On the correct diet, meese remain biddable and cooperative. Stray from this advice and the behaviour of your meese will become unpredictable at best.

Now is also an excellent time to start thinking about the stockings you will use over the festive period. The git moths will no doubt have had a nibble on any stocking you have tried to store from last year. While we make less of a tradition of stocking repair Sunday than we do spade up Sunday, you know what you have to do. Patch those holes! And if it turns out that your festive stockings are now more hole than fabric, you may have time to source or make a new pair.

Anyone who doesn’t have solid, hole-free stockings can of course expect to have terrible things happen over the festive period. If your black eyed meese tumble from the carelessly left holes, nothing will go well, and there’s also the issue of it being a really terrible omen. 

Obviously we all want the reassurance of good omens from our seasonal stockings, so I further remind you not to let git moths lay eggs in them. Do not put spoons in your stockings and leave them unattended. Do not allow anyone who has consumed night potato vodka to handle your stockings, or to breathe on them. No matter what Reverend Davies says, do not be persuaded to take any of them to any of his festive sermons, this never goes well.

And may your meese bless you with abundance and charm, and may their odours be pleasing. A reminder that an uncanny smell of vomit is not always a bad omen and can be the result of someone having tried to throw up discretely. You know who you are.

Hopeless

Welcome to Hopeless!

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The Hopeless Vendetta started life as the newspaper for a fictional island. These days, the site is a mix of fiction, whimsy, and news about other Hopeless, Maine projects. 

Hopeless, Maine is a haunted island off the coast of America. It first put out its tentacles as a web comic and blog. This has since led to graphic novels, prose novels, poetry, live performance and more.

I’ve made a Hopeless Handbook to help people orientate themselves. Hopeless is a large, many tentacled entity lurching in at least three directions at any given time.

Hopeless HandbookDownload

If you have questions the handbook doesn’t currently answer, please wave, and answers will be forthcoming.

The Hopeless Vendetta started life as the newspaper for a fictional island. These days, the site is a mix of fiction, whimsy, and news about other Hopeless, Maine projects. 

Hopeless

Why are there so many graveyards?

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Candles at the O’Stoat Crypt

Those of you who read the Hopeless, Maine graphic novels will likely have noticed that there are a lot of graveyards on the island. More graveyards than make any kind of immediate sense in relation to the apparent population size. There are reasons for that, of course.

Some of the reasons are geographical. There are a lot of places where the soil is thin. Bury the dead in shallow graves and hungry things will dig them up. No one likes seeing the partially eaten remains of their dead loved ones. It’s not even that much fun when it happens to people you don’t like. There’s also the problem that sometimes you bury people in shallow graves and they get up out of them. Therefore sometimes graveyards are small because they run out of useable land.

Of course there is halfway decent farmland on the island. Most people prefer not to put people into the soil where they intend to grow food crops. There is a story about how this is where night potatoes came from in the first place. It’s as well to think carefully about what you plant.

Some of the graveyards are just practical. They were the first bit of suitable soil nearest the pile of bodies. Usually the pile of bodies are on a beach and have washed in from a shipwreck which is why small clifftop cemeteries are so common. Dead people are one of the island’s major imports, thanks to the tides, and malevolent local magic. No one wants to go hauling dead strangers across the countryside and not everyone wants their beachcombing ruined by dead people. There are arguments over this, because there’s nothing like a shipwreck for bringing massive crabs onto the beach looking for food, and crabs in turn, are tasty. Still, the general consensus is that using human corpses as crab bait is a tad uncivilized.

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At The Bridge of Bottles

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The bridge of bottles connects Gaunt Street to Gaunt Town. Also known as The Old Town, Gaunt Town is the oldest part of the island’s major settlement. It remains inhabited, but mostly not by people. It is not a place for the living, nor for those who intend to remain living, as James points out in our current show.

The bridge of bottles crosses The Gaunt River here. Those of you who know your folklore will be aware that there are all sorts of things who do not like to cross running water. Being on the Gaunt Street side of the river is considerably safer than being on the Old Town side. Especially after dark.

The living tend to stay out of The Old Town. It is a place of shadows and unease. Even on the best and brightest days, it is never warm there. The past sits heavily on the land. However, there are many who venture as far as the bridge of bottles, to make their own strange rituals.

Quite how, or when or why any of this started, no one knows. These days, there are always bottles on the bridge. People bring them with little offerings inside. If you don’t have an empty bottle you can spare, it works just fine to bring the offerings and drop them into one of the empty bottles. There are always empty bottles, the offerings are usually accepted.

What meaning you bring to this is personal. Perhaps you wish to placate something by making an offering here. Perhaps you need to atone, or to seek good fortune. That’s between you and your bottle. Between you and whatever empties your bottle. Choose your gift carefully.

They say that blood makes the most powerful magic. It is a risky thing though, to give another entity a taste for you in this way. What is most personal is most potent, but there are always consequences. 

(With particular thanks to Keith Healing, who discovered the ruins of the Old Town while he was working on the role play game, and worked out the connection between Gaunt Street, the bridge of bottles, and that especially haunted bit of landscape. Gaunt Street, for anyone who hasn’t put it together, is where Owen, Lilly May and Donald take up residence in the graphic novel ‘Victims’. )