Of all of the flora and fauna of the island of Hopeless, Maine, the Spoonwalkers are a clear favourite with readers and people we meet at events. (They even have their own mythology…) One of our first readers, Theronody Krishna Isley, has created a sculptural Spoonwalker in a profoundly appropriate setting. To see more of her lovely work, you , could go… here!
Bill Jones is an artist, writer and performer (As Miserable Malcolm) from that centre of the creative universe that is Stroud, UK. (This enables us to stalk him regularly)
He has quite recently released (Via publisher- Head of Zeus) a new book titled The Life and Times of Algernon Swift which is gloriously saturated with puns, double meanings and artwork like that above. We own a signed copy, I’ll have you know! It can be got via online book selling sites and in all fine book stores (Possibly several middling book stores, but we wouldn’t know, as we don’t go into those) His website is to be found here.
We’ve been out and about… waving our tentacles in the ether
Some appropriate love for When we are Vanished by Nimue Brown (My partner in life and creative madness)
Here is a thing that will more than reward your time! (We are ‘Saztaculous Matlock Folk’, you will not be shocked to hear)
We have slept for a while.
Dark things dreaming.
Now we stretch, unfurl,
Unravel and recall.
Just a little bit hungry,
We are most fond of you.
Come and play with us.
Stay for tea.
For we are returning
As the year wanes
With plots anew,
Our tentacles resplendent.
The Hopeless Vendetta rises from the dead this Autumn. Keep an eye on this page as we shake off the dust, for there is much afoot and we have plans for you.
Currently, the press is out of action, life is too busy. However, you can read books one and two of the Hopeless Maine graphic novel series at www.hopelessmaine.com and you can buy the first one in lovely, splendid hardcover almost anywhere thanks to the splendid people at Archaia.
(Frampton Jones)
The Hopeless Vendetta reaches a remarkable milestone this week. Seventy years ago, Edgar Titus Prerogative arrived here from the mainland, enthused by developments he had seen there. According to his journals, Hopeless was a wilder place in those days, with society structured around the four founding families, and very little technology at all. At first unable to buy or make a printing press, my maternal grandfather erected a large board, painted it black and wrote news upon it in chalk. A tradition that continues to this day, as does the habit of writing personal comments upon it in response to local events.
Five years later, Prerogative managed to buy a small press from the mainland, however, the ship bringing it floundered on rocks, and the press sank. Over the next year, my ancestor dived repeatedly and was able to bring up what he believed to be the greater part of the press, improvising whatever was needed to fill in the gaps. Only at this point did the issue of paper occur to him, and two more years passed during which he mastered the art of paper making. The first press produced copies one at a time, and was remarkably slow and cumbersome to use.
Sixty years ago this week, the first Hopeless Vendetta went to press. It was a historical moment for the island, bringing the community together, facilitating public arguments, and allowing opinions to be widely aired. Edgar’s daughter married one Percival Jones, who took on the business of the press, inventing a new, faster device, and thence it passed to me. The future of this publication lies, it appears, in the hands of Modesty Jones. God willing however, I shall maintain its noble tradition for many more years yet.
(from Frampton Jones) I can only apologise for the abysmal quality of last week’s Vendetta. Apparently they had to tie me to a chair. It has been most embarrassing, but I have since been able to educate my nephew in the correct use of the press! Doc Willoughby says that I can start going out again now. They have taken away my old camera and smashed it up. I regret this. I feel there were mysteries I was close to solving, and now that knowledge is lost.
I consider myself a rational man, but the world is not a rational place and sometimes these things are hard to reconcile. Yesterday morning I watched as the only ship to successfully leave Hopeless in perhaps twenty years, set sail. I cannot explain how that ruined remnant of a boat floated, much less how it managed to leave out shores when so many others have tried and failed. What reason can you apply to a craft sailed by the undead? Sometimes, you can do no more than look, and wonder.
There is inspiration to be taken from their departure. Their sheer uncanniness undoubtedly played a role, but they prove it is possible to leave. Hopefully we will not all have to wait until we are animated bones on a floating wreck.
And so the ancestors have left us, and we will no longer see their bony figures on the shore at twilight. I for one will miss them, and wish them well, wherever they are bound. We return to work on the bridge, and turn our faces to the future once more.