Tag Archives: children

Hopeless

Once Upon a Hopeless Maine

Leave a comment

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.

Art of the island

Hopeless Children

Leave a comment
Art by Connie.

There are young humans in the Hopeless, Maine books, but this was never intended to be a project for children. However, there are children who rock up enthusiastically. Today’s guest art was the work of Connie, who introduced herself to us by throwing her hat at us during our performance at Raising Steam last year. She went on to make Tom and James sing her ‘bum in the bumhole’ song.

Not all children are into pretty and innocuous things. James as a child considered the owl demon from the first book to be cute. Connie, as we can tell from the drawing, also likes things with a lot of teeth. We’re aware of at least one other young human who is a big fan of Drury – our resident dead dog.

So here’s a lullaby.

Go to sleep, go sleep

Your parent is screaming,

The night is so black

And the dead things are dreaming.

Rest your bones and your eyes

And your pointy and sharp bits

Just be quiet, little fiend

Even old gods can have fits.

Dream of teeth, and of blood

And cold water rising

Rend and tear in your sleep

Thrash about, be surprising.

Go to sleep, little beast

Oh you darling small horror

Ceasing your gnashing and wailing

You can rampage tomorrow.

Island News

Once upon a Hopeless, Maine

2 Comments

Being some words from The Keith of Mystery

When is a children’s book, not a children’s book? Why, when it’s a Hopeless, Maine children’s book of course.

One of the things I love about the world of Hopeless, Maine is its dark sense of humour. To be honest, I am not a big fan of straight horror, but horror with a twisted sense of fun – yep – that will get me every time! And I love playing with genres, tropes, memes, and subverting people’s expectations – which is basically what the world of Hopeless, Maine does.

And it’s that world, along with its creators Tom & Nimue Brown, that I find endlessly inspiring – responsible for generating so many bonkers ideas in my brain – usually late at night, and sometimes after beer!

So at some point, I was playing around with these random ideas and it occurred to me that the very opposite of the dark, frightening world of Hopeless, Maine, would be a happy, cheery, children’s book.

And then I thought – but what would a Hopeless, Maine children’s book be like? Well, clearly not like any other children’s book, that’s for sure! The idea led to some words, and once I had the story, I felt that I had to realise it in print. Fortunately, when I told Tom and Nimue about it they loved it – I distinctly remember Nimue’s reaction to it, which was to tell me I have a wonderfully warped and twisted mind.

The concept required something new in the way of an illustrative style from Tom – but luckily, he has worked on children’s books before – so he had a style in mind – at least for the beginning of the book. And his drawing, along with Nimue’s colouring, are perfect – wonderfully sweet and darkly dangerous, all at the same time.

I can’t tell you much more – that would give away the plot! But expect a story that starts all nice and fluffy and gradually becomes darker and more demonic!

The book Once upon a Hopeless, Maine is available to order from our Tales of Hopeless, Maine store.

And here’s a little taste of what’s inside…