We’re so jolly! But you probably already knew that.
Festive jollity from Hopeless, Maine
Out of Time
Readers may recall that Rhys Cranham, the Night-Soil Man, had found himself mysteriously deposited in a Hopeless that he did not recognise. He discovered, in a poorly furnished version of his cottage, the dead body of another Night-Soil Man, guarded by the skeletal hound, Drury. Initially relieved to find that his old friend was there, Rhys changed his mind when it became obvious that not only did Drury not recognise him, but that the dog decided to literally launch an attack, hurling himself in Rhys’ direction. Had Drury been in receipt of hot breath, or indeed, any variety of breath, it is certain that Rhys would have felt the benefit of it on his exposed throat.
Those who have followed the deeds, and misdeeds, of Drury, will not be surprised to learn that, while he makes an exemplary guard-dog, his killer-instinct is pretty much non-existent. If he were human, the idiom ‘all mouth and no trousers’ would immediately spring to mind, which, for Rhys Cranham, was fortunate. Having leapt on to the Night-Soil Man and knocked him to the ground, Drury was at a loss as to what to do next, other than amble back to the corner of the room and look at Rhys with a baleful eye-socket.
From his horizontal position, wheels and small cogs began to whirr and click in Rhys’ mind. The missing privy at The Squid and Teapot, the disappearance of his cobbled pathway and the fact that Drury did not recognise him, all pointed to his having been transported back to an earlier date in the island’s history. While this realisation would have reduced many of us to gibbering wrecks, Rhys was not particularly fazed. After all, he had lived on Hopeless for all of his life. The occasional strange occurrence was to be expected, and could often be viewed as a welcome diversion from the monotony of day to day living.
The immediate priority for the Night-Soil Man was to get Drury on-side, before he dealt with the problem of disposing of the corpse slumped in the chair.
Suddenly inspiration struck. He burst into song and the parlour was filled with the notes of a surprisingly pleasing baritone voice.
“In Dublin’s fair city,
Where the girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone…”
Drury looked up with interest.
“… As she wheeled her wheelbarrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o.”
By now Drury was on his feet and wagging his tail. There was definitely something about this song that appealed to him.
Rhys launched confidently, and with no small amount of gusto, into the chorus, knowing full-well what effect the song would have on the dog. In his own time, Drury had become instantly enamoured with a version of ‘Molly Malone’, played on a wax-cylinder. While the Irish tenor on the phonograph did a decent enough job, Rhys felt sure that his own effort was vastly superior.
The old magic of ‘Molly Malone’ was working. Drury was wagging not only his tail, but his rear end as well, excited by the singing. It was almost as if he was able to remember the future, which, in view of this taking place on Hopeless, Maine, was by no means outside the realm of possibility.
After a half-a-dozen rousing choruses of ‘alive, alive-o’, Rhys felt that enough was enough. He was definitely in Drury’s good books by now and the osseous hound was sitting happily at his feet. Rhys looked at him fondly, and said,
“Drury, old friend, there’s something we have to do.”
The dog cocked his head to one side, listening intently.
“You’ve been around Night-Soil Men for most of your life… and… um… more,”
Drury had never accepted the fact that he was no longer alive, in the literal sense, so Rhys was being careful. He looked across the room at the corpse in the armchair.
“I don’t know what his name was, or why he died, but there is something important that must be done.”
To Rhys’ surprise Drury rattled to his feet and trotted out through the door, only to return a minute or so later, dragging a bedsheet. There was a clothes peg attached to one corner.
“Up to your old tricks, I see,” muttered Rhys, then he realised what the dog intended him to do.
Rhys spread the sheet on the floor of the cottage and manoeuvred the body of the Night-Soil Man on to it. It took but a few minutes for Rhys to wrap him up and, with some difficulty, hoist him on to his shoulder. Drury watched impassively as he made his way outside, bearing his burden.
The job of a Night-Soil Man is difficult and dangerous, and few enjoy a normal life-span. It has long been their practice to take on an apprentice who, hopefully, will have learned his trade before his master finally succumbs to whatever fate awaits him. When that time comes, the apprentice is expected to dispose of his master’s corpse by dropping him into the bottomless sink-hole that lies at the end of his garden. Although this sounds harsh, it ensures that the body will not be ravaged by any of the denizens who stalk the island, or swim in the wild ocean beyond. When the time came, Rhys, his body racked with sobs, had sent his predecessor, Shenandoah Nailsworthy, into the mysterious depths of the sinkhole. It was not a task he had expected to have to repeat, but now, here he was, doing it for a stranger, who, apparently had no apprentice.
“I never knew you my friend, but for some reason your spirit came to find me,” he said, recalling the ghost who had led him there.
With as much reverence as possible, Rhys let the body, still wrapped in its sheet, slip soundlessly into the sink-hole,
“The Night-Soil Man is dead. Long live the Night-Soil Man.”
Rhys walked sadly back to the cottage with Drury at his heels.
“I guess it’s up to me now to be the new Night-Soil man,” he said aloud, then added,
“I wonder what year this is?”
If Drury knew, he was not saying.
The Leathery Chevin
No one hopes they will get a leathery Chevin for Christmas. Usually, the appearance of such a horrible doll is a sign that you have caused deep offence. It suggests someone may even be considering killing you, and that you should, as a matter of some urgency, mend your ways.
Leather is a valuable commodity and not as common as would be ideal. Everyone needs leather shoes, and in the winter, you want oilskins, or oiled leather. Seals know not to venture too close to the island, and sea otters are in desperately short supply, so the chances of you getting winter wear from such a creature depends on it washing up dead, but not so dead as to be unsalvageable.
For generations, the Chevins have specialised in both harvesting and processing leather. The smells associated with this work have only enhanced their reputation for not being very nice. However, if a creature dies, getting a Chevin in quickly to process the skin is always popular. And no one wants to leave a dead donkey on the roof through the winter.
Hopeless does not lend itself to the leather industry. The goats and donkeys are clever and keep to themselves a lot. The cows are decidedly on the small side. As a consequence, rather a lot of leather-like materials are harvested from the sea. The Chevins are discrete and secretive about this. To the point whereby the family’s entire secrecy budget seems to go on not talking about the leather, while their oversharing and indiscretion bloom wildly in all other contexts. No one really knows what most of their leather is. The general assumption is that the leather-ish material they sell has probably been extracted from some horrible form of sea life in the sort of way it would likely be best not to know about.
All of this contributes to the leathery Chevin being so ominous and unwelcome a gift. There are those who say that the leathery Chevins are made from the skins of people who have previously annoyed the Chevins. I’m sure that’s unfounded. I am prepared to continue to be publicly confident on this score, because I neither wish to receive nor become a leathery Chevin.
The Visitor
Rhys Cranham had no problem with being around ghosts. In his role of Hopeless Maine’s Night-Soil Man, he encountered them regularly. Most were harmless, but others, such as Obadiah Hyde, the Mad Parson of Chapel Rock, certainly were not, and so Rhys made a point of avoiding Obadiah and his ilk whenever possible. Uniquely, among those of the spirit world, Miss Calder was inclined to be flirtatious. Rhys often wondered if this was more out of pity than anything else, as she would have known full-well that the life of a Night-Soil Man is lonely and loveless. This made him feel uncomfortable for all sorts of reasons, for, much to his own surprise, he found that he was not without feelings for her. This, in turn, gave him a dreadful guilt complex, as there was a definite frisson between Philomena Bucket and himself, and for a brief time, after she arrived on the island, it seemed as though romance was a possibility; or it was, until a hearty dose of sea-water swilled out the grains lodged in Philomena’s nose, and her sense of smell returned. It was at that point that Cupid almost dropped his bow in an attempt to make a hurried exit.
Yes, Rhys was fairly sure that he had met every ghost on the island, at one time or another, and could name each of them. That was why the apparition of a middle-aged man, currently wandering through the walls of his cottage, surprised him quite as much as it did. The Night-Soil man had fallen asleep in his armchair following his nightly rounds, and had been enjoying a pleasant dream that involved his swimming in an ocean of ‘Old Colonel’ ale. He awoke, bleary and with no small measure of disappointment. It took a few seconds of blinking and yawning before he registered the presence of his spectral visitor.
The ghost said nothing, but fluttered before him, beckoning and pointing to the closed door, through which he slipped like smoke. Seemingly unable to resist, Rhys rose to his feet, picked up his candle-lantern, and followed him. It was the early hours of the morning and the island slept. You could tell that it was sleeping by the way that the Gydynap Hills rose and fell slightly, filling the air with the sound of contented snoring. Occasionally a small flock of gnii would fly overhead, making the distinctive gnii, gnii sound, after which they were named. As ever, a thick mist shrouded the island, but the dimly phosphorescent spectre hovered in front of him like a beacon.
It was when they passed The Squid and Teapot that Rhys sensed that something was not right. The old place looked very much same, illuminated as it was by the candle-lantern, but Rhys could not remember the paintwork to be quite so neglected, while some of the window panes looked grimy and cracked.
“I’m surprised Bartholomew has allowed it to get into this state,” he thought to himself, as he wandered around the building. No sooner had the thought entered his head than he was forced to stop dead in his tracks. Something was definitely not right… and then he spotted it, or, to put things more precisely, he didn’t spot it at all. Where the flushing privy had stood, just a few hours ago, there was now an empty space, bordered by the blank, grey, back wall of the inn.
Rhys could not believe his eyes. Even in the unlikely event of Bartholomew wanting to demolish the privy, which had always been his pride and joy, and envy of the landlord of ‘The Crow’, there would have been some disturbed ground, some debris strewn around, but the whole area looked as though nothing had ever been standing there.
“Then I must be dreaming,” Rhys decided, and looked down at his hands.
You may not know this, but the Night-Soil Man had long been a lucid dreamer. He had, on many occasions, been fully aware that he was dreaming and was, from that happy position, able to direct events in a most satisfactory way. (Most Night-Soil men have learned to cultivate this ability, allowing them the companionship in dreams that they lacked in their waking lives).
Like anyone with a similar skill, however, Rhys knew that there were some anomalies that even the most lucid of dreamers was subject to, and the state of one’s hands was one of those anomalies. If you looked at them twice they would be different; they might have too many, or too few, fingers. They might turn into crab-like claws, or resemble several pairs of scissors, There was never any guarantee what you might see. On this occasion Rhys’ hands looked perfectly normal, but the mystery of the disappearing privy troubled him, so he racked his brain for other signs that he was in a dream.
“Text!” he said to himself. “That’s another one, text.”
He recalled that writing was rarely readable in a dream, and certainly never looked the same twice. He scanned around, looking for some words to test his theory.
The faded sign outside the inn proudly, though not unsurprisingly, proclaimed ‘The Squid and Teapot’. To give the legend on the sign some credence, it sat above a painting which depicted a cephalopod caressing a spouted utensil which did, indeed, closely resemble a teapot.
Rhys closed his eyes for a moment, then squinted at the sign again. Nothing had changed, the words were the same.
While all of this was going on, the ghost was becoming impatient, tapping his feet and drumming his fingers against folded arms, until gradually he began to fade away, as though his work was done, leaving a mystified Rhys standing alone in the deserted street. He shrugged and walked back through the town, towards his cottage. It was a strange journey, for although everything was familiar, the buildings appeared to sport small changes here and there, making the Night-Soil Man feel distinctly uneasy.
If Rhys felt that the differences in the town were unsettling, his heart almost stopped when he reached the cottage at Poo Corner. His cobbled pathway was gone, the front door was now a different colour and, like The Squid, the whole place looked neglected and unloved. Rhys cautiously entered and, in the glow of his lantern, the room sprang to life, sending shadows dancing over the bare walls.
The small parlour was sparsely furnished and bore little resemblance to Rhys’ cosy home. Slumped in the only armchair was the figure of a man. He was fully dressed and, although Rhys’ sense of smell was accustomed to the stench of night-soil, he was aware that he was in the presence of another Night-Soil Man; or, he would have been, had the poor fellow been alive. The man in the chair felt cold and stiff to the touch. Then a chill ran down Rhys’ spine as he recognised him; he found himself looking at the earthly remains of his ghostly visitor.
Suddenly, the silence was broken by a noise in the corner, It was a dry, rattling sound which Rhys immediately recognised.
“Drury!” he exclaimed, relieved to see the familiar skeletal form of his old friend getting to his feet.
“Dear old Drury, am I glad to see you.”
If Drury had possessed hackles, they would have risen. He tucked his head in to his shoulders and gave a low, menacing growl.
“Hey, what’s wrong old fella?”
The dog bared his teeth (inasmuch as you can bare teeth which are completely visible at all times) and the low growl became a full throated roar.
Rhys barely had time to raise his arms in defence as Drury leapt towards his throat.
To be continued…
Survivors in progress
We’re currently working on Hopeless, Maine – Survivors, which will be the last graphic novel in the series, wrapping up this story line.
It’s probably also the last graphic novel we (specifically Tom and Nimue) do, unless someone other than Tom is overwhelmed by the desire to draw comics pages. It’s such time consuming work.
It isn’t the last Hopeless Maine story, it’s just that we’re moving into other ways of sharing island life. There will be more books and more art.
Here are some pencils in progress. As Tom keeps saying on social media ‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about here.’
Books of the year
There are Hopeless things here, and a number of other people we really like…
An Afternoon Stroll
Drury, the skeletal hound, was enjoying a particularly productive day. Mrs Beaten was mysteriously missing two pairs of unmentionables from her washing line, Reverend Davies was wondering where his scarf had gone and a diminutive cephalopod was suffering severe heart palpitations, having been tossed in the air several times – and all this before his afternoon walk with Philomena Bucket. Could life, or more correctly, afterlife, really get any better?
It had long been Philomena’s practice to take a walk between the busier times at The Squid and Teapot. Having cooked a batch of Starry-Grabby pies that morning, and washed-up after the lunchtime trade, she felt that she had earned her hour or so of leisure time. There are those who would argue that battling through the inclement, not to say downright hostile, weather that plagued Hopeless, Maine, along with the island’s many hazards, hardly constituted leisure. Philomena, however, was a hardy soul, and usually never happier than when striding the Gydynap Hills with Drury beside her, but for some reason, today she felt differently. The daylight hours of December are scant for all of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere, but on Hopeless, where the sun is perpetually fighting a losing battle, winter days rarely struggle to be any more than a dismal twilight. Philomena was not particularly bothered by this, but an air of foreboding, and the promise of returning to the cheer of The Squid seemed especially attractive.
Drury liked it when Philomena sang to him. Sometimes it would be a traditional Irish ballad, a music-hall ditty or, more often than not, just scraps of a half-remembered song that she had heard somewhere or other along the way; Drury did not care, and had no interest in its origins. He just loved to hear her soft, lilting voice. It made him feel warm inside, or it certainly would have, had he actually possessed an inside. Today she was singing ‘Shortenin’ Bread’. As to the meaning of the words, Philomena had no more idea than did Drury. She thought it must be a nonsense song; after all, if mamma’s little baby did indeed indulge in the pastime of shortening bread, which apparently he or she loved to do, it would be hazardous in the extreme. As far as Philomena was aware, the only way to shorten bread is with a bread knife and no one in their right mind would let a baby loose with such an implement.
She was pondering these thoughts, and in the middle of singing the chorus for the forty-fifth time (in fact, the chorus, which consists solely of the words ‘Mamma’s little baby loves shortenin’ bread’ was the only bit of the song that Philomena knew), when she was suddenly stopped in her tracks by the sight of a brace of spoonwalkers, tottering along in front of her and carrying between them something that looked remarkably like a bottle of ‘Old Colonel’ ale. Drury let out a low growl, and would have given chase, but Philomena placed a hand on his bony back, and commanded him to stay (it says much for their relationship that she could actually do this. Drury has long been thought to be untameable).
Although the dog had been successfully looking after himself since long before Philomena, or, come to that, her beloved old granny, was born, the barmaid wanted to go home and would not have felt comfortable leaving Drury alone and up on the hills after dark, chasing these vicious little cutlery thieves .
The pair watched the spoonwalkers creep unsteadily into a cleft in the rocks. This, in itself, would not be deemed unusual, but the pale yellow light that issued from within the hill was decidedly other than normal.
Throwing caution to the wind, Philomena, with Drury at her side, tiptoed to a spot near to which the spoonwalkers had disappeared. Upon closer inspection the cleft was larger than it had at first appeared, being as high as Philomena was tall, and just about wide enough for her, or a particularly thin man, to squeeze through. While she had no wish to enter the cave herself, Philomena could not help but notice that a particularly thin man had, indeed, already accomplished the feat, and was squatting on the ground, surrounded by a band of, apparently adoring, spoonwalkers. His eyes looked huge and glowed with a ghastly luminescence in the pale candlelight.
“It’s Linus!” gasped Philomena, with surprise.
Linus Pinfarthing had not been seen on the island for months. Following the death of Marjorie Toadsmoor he had become a drunkard and, as such, his disappearance was generally attributed to his having fallen off a cliff and into the sea. No one really knew the full extent of his story, related in these very tales, of how he had been possessed by the Trickster, then later saved by a band of grateful spoonwalkers that he had once rescued from the clutches of the trapper, Zeke Tyndale.
Philomena watched, fascinated, as the cadaverous figure clambered to its feet and swayed dangerously in the greasy light of tallow candles. A chilling rictus, that might easily have denoted pleasure or pain, masked his face, and he began to dance clumsily, with the spoonwalkers milling around his feet on their cutlery stilts.
She wondered what to do. Should she tell someone; raise a rescue-party to take him back to the town? The sad truth is that the friendship of spoonwalkers – which, as far as I am aware, no other human being had previously enjoyed – does not make one invulnerable to the fatal madness induced by their gaze; it was clear to Philomena that Linus was well beyond the reach of reason. Into whatever strange landscape his mind had retreated, that was his home now. There could be no escape until his wasted body gave up entirely, and by the look of him, that day would not be too far away.
Philomena had never harboured any great affection for Linus, but to see him now, reduced to the shadow that he was, brought a lump to her throat.
“Come on old friend,” she said to Drury, hurriedly turning her back on the tableau inside the cave, “it’s high time we were getting back.”
The Legend of Two Spoons McGraw
A new story from Keith Errington!
Two Spoons McGraw was a legend on Hopeless, Maine. But, to be honest, being a legend wasn’t difficult on Hopeless, Maine – there were plenty of legends arising from the island, although, to be fair, few of them were told about people who were still alive. McGraw was both alive and famous. He was certainly more famous than Fork Leg Leon, but perhaps less famous than 110 Knives Patricia.
Now, do not think by this, that fame is measured in the amount of cutlery you are associated with; no, these enumerations were entirely coincidental. Fame on Hopeless, Maine, like pretty much anywhere else, was measured in deeds, words and actions (and access to a friendly storyteller like myself, of course.)
At this point, dear reader, I invoke my powerful clairvoyant skills to divine what you are thinking at this precise moment? Why the name Two Spoons McGraw? And what was his legend?
Not long ago, everyone thought that Martin McGraw was a simple fantasist. That he had lost his mind like so many others who dwelt on the Island for any length of time. It was often said that if you hadn’t lost your mind at least a tiny little bit, you were not a true islander. McGraw was convinced he was a cowboy, a rooting, tooting, hat wearing, trick shooting, tobacco chewing, son of a gun. He had managed to find an old hat that he had bashed about and steamed until it mostly resembled a Stetson. McGraw then added two leather belts – one slung across each shoulder, bandito style. The blacksmith had, somewhat reluctantly, fashioned a pair of simple spurs, although they weren’t very good. In fact, they were so bad that only McGraw knew what they were actually supposed to be.
By now, you have probably guessed that McGraw was not toting a pair of ivory handled Smith and Wesson six shooters on his belt. Nope – guns were non-existent on the island, and besides, ordinary powder was ineffective on Hopeless, Maine. Being as mad as a coot, and possessed of a vivid imagination, McGraw toted a pair of ivory handled, ornately decorated spoons. They were as beautiful to look at as they were as ineffective as a weapon – particularly at medium to long range.
So far – just another average citizen of Hopeless, but McGraw’s name became legend one day when a dispute with a neighbour, Captain Coleridge, came to a head. McGraw had challenged Coleridge to a mid-day duel. Like everyone else, Coleridge thought McGraw was mad, but felt like he needed to confront McGraw and sort out the matter. (no one, to this day, can remember quite what the dispute was about). Being an ex-military man, Coleridge had fashioned a bow and arrow, which he brought with him in case McGraw proved dangerous – after all, Coleridge knew from experience, being mad often went hand-in-hand with being dangerous.
––<>––
Noon, the main street of town.
At one end, Captain Coleridge, 58, experienced soldier, seen too many wars and armed with flint-tipped arrows and a powerful bow.
At the other, McGraw, 32, deluded fantasist, believing himself a gunslinger, armed with the finest Sheffield could offer in the way of harmless cutlery.
Lillywhite Lanbury had been chosen as the signaller. It had been agreed that she would drop her handkerchief and at the moment it hit the ground, that would be the sign to draw.
Lillywhite, true to her name, was a lady pale of complexion, and delicate of figure. She took excessive care of herself, which, given her apparent frailty, was probably wise. She wore the finest silks and the most beautiful dresses. Her handkerchief, for example, was made of the finest gossamer thin silk, and weighed almost nothing.
And it was this one fact that would prove to be a significant factor in how the following scene played out.
At the stroke of noon, Lillywhite Lanbury held her hand up and let the handkerchief slip through her fingers.
The slightest of winds, funnelled down an alleyway between the buildings on the street, wafted across and lightly caught the handkerchief. It floated motionless for a moment, as if to tease the two combatants, and then, capriciously, it carried the square of white silk upwards in a slow spiral.
The reaction of the two men at either ends of the street could not have been more different. McGraw simply stayed motionless, his feet slightly apart, his hands hovering above his twin holsters, fingers mere millimetres from his spoons. Coleridge, on the other hand, who was already sweaty from his quick walk to the place, was now obviously agitated and had started to twitch. A military expletive issued from his lips as he watched the handkerchief dancing in the breeze.
As this was happening, a slight fog drifted across the town. This was perhaps the most normal event of the day. Hopeless, Maine was perpetually foggy, although admittedly less so in the town. Onlookers – of which there were many – could still see the duellists, but everything had that slightly blurry edge to it, typical of a mildly foggy day.
The eyes of McGraw and Coleridge were still fixated on the handkerchief, which was still several inches above the dirt of the street, but nevertheless, seemingly now travelling, but oh so slowly, downwards.
McGraw was as passive as before. He was born for this. Living by the code of the cowboy, by the might of the spoon, that was his calling.
Coleridge, on the other hand, was visibly shaking. His face had reddened, and his forehead was clearly traced with a couple of bulging veins. He had raised his bow, but his left arm was twitching, and he was struggling to hold it steady.
The handkerchief, in cahoots with the breeze, took one more opportunity to tease. It looped upwards and then down.
As the silken square was looping, Coleridge shouted something in total exasperation, which sounded like, “For Drury’s Sake”.
Silk touched dirt.
There was an instant flash of silver as twin spoons were drawn in the blink of an eye, then a twinkling as they were spun and holstered.
At the other end of the street, his face twisted in agony, Coleridge clutched his upper chest and went down.
Now the rule in most parts of the world is that you look for a rational explanation for events first, and then, and only then, when all logical possibilities have been exhausted do you imagine some other force at work, some magic, some mystical power, some influence. Only then does superstition take hold.
I suspect you can guess what I am going to say here. Superstition was the first port of call for any unexplained event on Hopeless, Maine. What the onlookers to the showdown had seen, clearly, despite the slight fog, was Two Spoons McGraw (as he had instantly been named) draw his spoons and Coleridge go down. There was a clear corelation between the two events. Captain Coleridge had died at the hands of Two Spoons McGraw and his deadly spoonfighting skills. He was truly a spoonslinging legend.
––<>––
It so happened that Doc Willoughby was passing, and although in a desperate hurry to be somewhere else, as he often was,he nevertheless agreed to look at the body. The crowd described to him what had happened. Surely it was McGraw’s silver spoons that had killed him?
The Doc looked at the eager crowd around him, then down at the obvious heart attack victim, then back at the expectant crowd. Realising it would take at least an hour of explanation to deal with this, he sighed and said in his best Western accent, “Yep, reckon those spoons of McGraw’s are right lethal – I’d be about givin’ him a lot more respect from now on if I was you”. And he got up and wearily pushed his way back out, through the crowd, as quickly as possible.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Legend of Two Spoons McGraw was born.
A little Hopeless Listening
Recently, Steven C. Davis put together a podcast of music that, for him, evokes the island of Hopeless Maine. We listened in when the show went out live and were delighted by the eclectic mix of material and the number of bands and songs we already knew and liked. Some of whom had written Hopeless Maine songs. There were also some excellent new-to-us moments.
For further delight and delectation, Keith Errington is also in the mix reading some of his highly entertaining Hopeless Maine material.
It gave us a lot of warm, fuzzy feelings.
We’ll be going to Steve’s real-world event in May, which we are decidedly excited about. This is a man who clearly gets the island, and with whom we are clearly going to be able to do some really interesting things.
The podcast is on mixcloud, and embedded below.
[mixcloud https://www.mixcloud.com/stevencdavis10/gasp-visits-hopeless-maine/ width=100% height=120 hide_cover=1]
Hopeless in Space!
We took a little bit of Hopeless, Maine to Steampunks in Space, at the National Space centre in Leicester.
To our utter delight, Nimrod and Fiona came along in their These Our Revels costumes!
And here we have Lyssa Lopez Wain, whose image features in the Optimists volume. She’s also Queen of Night Potatoes in the tarot set!
And here’s Mélissa Delteil with her fabulous Annamarie Nightshade picture, also featured in Optimists.
