Tag Archives: Hopeless Maine

Hopeless

Clarity about Tom Brown

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During the kickstarter, Tom Brown contacted me about his intentions regarding Hopeless, Maine. He’s not been an active contributor to the project since the final book came out this time last year, and he had not been involved with the blog for a lot longer than that.

(I thought I’d illustrate this post with a little cartoon I did years ago – Tom Brown as a spoonwalker.)

Tom Brown has stated that he does not want to be involved in any way moving forward, but he is happy for people to continue Hopeless, Maine without him.

It’s good to have the clarity. I feel this opens things up for us and for anyone interested in future Hopeless, Maine projects. In the coming weeks, I will be overhauling this site and our social media to reflect these changes. We have three people in the team who are going to take up more of the art side. Anyone who would like to be part of that is welcome to get involved – be that with photos, as a maker, or any kind of visual art that doesn’t involve AI.

We’ve got some exciting plans for October – and there will be news of that here very shortly. It’s something you can easily get involved with and it should be a lot of fun.

Hopeless, Maine has always been bigger than the sum of its parts. As James Weaslegrease pointed out, this is not the beginning of the end for the island. It is the end of the beginning. Now we watch to see what all those fascinating wriggly egg sacks have inside them…

Hopeless

Meet the welcoming committee

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In which Keith Errington has things to say about the next Hopeless, Maine book to come out.

Our Welcoming Committee

A big thank you to all our kickstarter backers, whether you are a previous backer of a Hopeless, Maine project or a new vic… I mean… new bloo… err… newbie! Welcome to the island.
 

Even if you are a long-time fan of Hopeless, Maine you might not be entirely familiar with all the characters featured in the books, so we thought you might appreciate this wonderful illustration of the cast of Book One: Personal Demons created for an exhibition in Osaka, Japan.

Pay particular attention to the fellow in the bowler hat, third from the right, that’s Frampton Jones, proprietor, editor, journalist and photographer and solely responsible for the Hopeless, Vendetta, and he is the reason we know so much (so little?) about the island.

Now, for the first time, his story is told in Semblance of Truth, a novella that is currently only available through this Kickstarter.

“His quest for the truth exposes him to strangeness at every turn. Now someone is leaving him messages written with the remains of fish. The island’s spoon thief may be using his home as their hideout. His camera is probably possessed by something unspeakable. Trying to make sense of the things he encounters is an ongoing flirtation with madness.”

Semblance of Truth is set at about the same time as the first Hopeless, Maine graphic novel (Personal Demons) and fills in some of the background for that story while also expanding on the peculiarities of life on a gothic island.

At the moment you can only obtain Semblance of Truth by pledging at the Everything Hopeless! level, which is one of the more pricy pledge levels, but when you consider you also get the New England Gothic/Oddatsea novel, pdfs and hardback versions of Books One, Two, and Three it’s really quite a bargain. (Remember, you can update your pledge at any time until the project ends – here’s how to update your pledge on the app.)

Finally, we can only get your lovely Hopeless, Maine goodies into your hands if we fund, so please remember to share the project – tell all your friends, family, work colleagues, any influencers you know, people in the street, your arresting officer and any demons you may be personally acquainted with. 
 

Here’s the link to share: 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hopelessmaine/hopeless-maine-1-3-sinners-a-graphic-novel-series

Flora and fauna

Harvesting G’nee oil

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After some recent discussions in the pub it has become obvious that not everyone knows what to do if they find a dead g’nee. Back in the day of course we caught the giant ones and processed their oil, but the really big ones don’t come to the island any more, for some reason.

G’nee are easy to identify. If you find something with tentacles that has been crushed by a rock, this will be a g’nee. They have a nearly-invisible hot hair balloon as part of their anatomy, and when their candles run out, they fall out of the sky and are often killed by the stones they were carrying. Why they feel the urge to carry the stones is anyone’s guess  – maybe as stands for the candles. How they get the candles remains a mystery. How they light the candles is also unknown. But they are at least easy to identify when dead.

Having scraped what remains of the g’nee off the stone, you have to press the oil out. This is best done through either squeezing, or the application of weight or pressure. Do not try to boil the oil out, this does not work. The oil is dark, thick and smelly. It is exceptionally good for oiling machinery. It is singularly dreadful for cooking with, and as James Weaselegrease has recently ascertained, likely to induce vomiting. Frankly, if James can’t eat it, no one can.

We hear rumour that some people swear by it as a skin oil. Applying it to the skin is likely to make your average islander smell a good deal worse than usual, and as the oil deteriorates, the smell increases. Whether there are any skin benefits to be achieved remains to be seen – we look forward to hearing about you experiments with this.

(Image and text by Nimue, with input from James and Keith)

Hopeless

Weaselgrease Wednesdays

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We’ve had a lot of shifts here on the island in the last year. With the final graphic novel out, island life has changed in terms of what might happen – and you’re seeing some of that reflected in stories here on the blog.

We’ve had a lovely influx of islanders – thank you to everyone who has contributed themselves, that’s been wonderful.

Both Steven C Davis and Mark Hayes have become regular contributors, and we’re seeing frequent tales from both Keith Errington and Roz White – a huge thanks to them for getting more involved.

Martin Pearson has been doing a top job keeping The Squid and Teapot going, and I’ve been in the weird position of being the illustrator regularly as well as writing. I am what we’ve got, and I am very open to getting more visual artists involved.

This summer, James Weaslegrease has taken on some of the social media work, covering me for patches I can’t do due to my gallivanting about. You can find Hopeless on Facebook, Twitter and Bluesky. The aim going forwards is to have Weaslegrease Wednesdays where James is unleashed upon these sites to do whatever strange things he feels compelled to do. Although I note with interest that he’s been tone-matching so well that it might not have been obvious when it was him, and when it was me.

Hopeless continues to exist because it’s a community, and because enough people care about it to want to keep it going. If you’re ever tempted to have a go, please do get in touch and jump in. The water is cold, but the tentacles are lovely.

Hopeless inhabitants

Captain Swing is struggling

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Being an anti-establishment figure is probably a lot easier when you have an establishment to rail against. Here on Hopeless, we have long prided ourselves in our absolute refusal to have a town council, put anyone in charge or accept anyone’s authority. Obviously if you want to accept someone’s authority you are totally at liberty to do so.  Reverend Davies and Durosimi O’Stoat have reliably offered themselves as people willing to tell other people what to do.

It is true that life on Hopeless is grim, and our lack or organisation probably contributes to that. And so it is that the strife between rugged individualism and community-mindedness will likely continue forever, or at least until we are all eaten by monstrous beings.

When Martin first landed here, he was quickly found in the pub talking about the need to unite against our oppressors. Fine, and rousing speeches were made, and we all enjoyed the novelty of that. Organising against our actual oppressors remains difficult – the hard and uncaring land on which we dwell, the cruel weather, the relentless sea, and the ravenous eldritch horrors.

What Martin has taught us is that we don’t really want to organise at all. Fighting the horrors is futile. What we want to do is go down the pub now and then to sing rousing songs about overcoming oppression, uniting as workers and demanding better conditions. It’s all rather jolly, so long as no one imagines actually doing anything.

Captain Swing cosplay by Martin Nitro Wyatt

Art of the island

SINNERS

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Hello again people (and others)

I’m going to talk about a graphic novel cover again, but I’m also going to talk about the art mischief we got up to with this whole volume.

When Nimue and I pondered what to do for the cover of the Outland edition of Hopeless, Maine -Sinners, we thought of the book as a whole and the visual theme we played with. In Sinners, we borrowed (ahem) from famous iconic paintings and bent them to our fell purpose. Or , looking at it another way, we payed tribute to some of our favourite art and artists from history. So, for example, here is the original painting by John Everett Millais-

…and here is what we did to it, with Mellisandra standing (floating) in for Ophelia.

Pre Raphaelite artists certainly predominated for this sort of treatment but there was also a chapter cover titled Foggy Night.

So, for the wraparound cover for the new hardcover edition we went back to the pre raphaelites. We needed an image that could be tuned to our theme, and that might be recognisable as a source of inspiration. We chose The Magic Circle by Waterhouse-

and turned it into….this.

with Simon in the background, naturally, as Sal with creatures is the theme for the Outland editions.

So…there you have it. Find a copy of Sinners to see what other terrible things we have done, or wait for the Outland campaign for the hardcover edition.

We hope, as always, this finds you well, inspired and thriving.

Art of the island

Survivors cover.

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Hello again people! (and others)

It’s a strange and interesting time for us. We are finishing up the final volume of the Hopeless, Maine graphic novel series and this is the conclusion of something that has been a huge part of our lives (Sometimes too much a part of our lives, sometimes not enough) It brings up memories and associations that I could not even begin to list or describe adequately. It’s been woven into the last decade of our lives (plus a bit) inextricably and it’s a big part of how we got together in the first place!

So, finding an image that would feel right to us and also, hopefully, to all of you for the final graphic novel cover was a pretty big thing. We’ve had a theme in the Sloth Editions for the covers. It’s always Sal performing magic of some sort. We needed that element and something that suggested the huge changes and events that take place in Survivors. It was Nimue, of course, who had the concept. Sal, holding the island, And…not in her wrappings. In a simple dress. It was and is, perfect. (In ways you will not really understand until next year when the book is released) Nimue posed for a reference photo (Again, perfect) and I drew it out, putting the island in perspective and surrounding Sal with the eyes that we have seen before. Nimue coloured it, I did a final clean up and reestablishing of the lines, scanned and added some of the magic effects and small highlights in Clip Studio and here we are. I very much hope you like.

I am, as always, hoping this finds you well, inspired and thriving.

Tom

Art of the island

The front of Survivors, so far

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Hello, again people (and others)

Here at Hopeless, Maine headquarters we are somewhat plague ridden but still wish to bring you all of the island news that is fit to shout into the ether.

Having finished drawing the page art for the final graphic novel volume, it was time to draw the cover for Hopeless, Maine-Survivors. The concept was Nimue’s (she even posed for it) The island is an ever changing place, but here Sal presents it as caught at a moment in time. This is the first time we haven’t drawn the cover first, but have let the finished (ish) book inform us of what the cover needed to be. Next, Nimue will make it amazing with the colours and we will unveil that at some point in the not too dim and distant future!

Hope, as always, this finds you well, inspired and thriving.

Tom

Hopeless inhabitants

Head dwelling Spoonwalker.

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Hello, people! (and others)

We, at Hopeless, Maine headquarters (There is joke here somewhere, given the title…) are excited to announce the the very maker of the official headwear of the Bishop of Squid, one Tracey Abrahams by name, is in the process of creating a Spoonwalker hat! She has fallen under the influence of the island and plans severa; projects based on the strange fauna of the island. If you’d like to see more of her work (Probably to include updates on the Hopeless, Maine based projects, please visit here.

If you would like a spoonwalker hat of your very own, you can message Tracey via her Instagram page and start a (strange) conversation!

Here are the progress shots you were waiting for!

Art of the island

Optimists – Chapter Covers

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The theme for the chapter covers in Hopeless, Maine, Optimists, is creatures. Teaselheads, spoonwalkers, moths, dustcats, builder-squid and an ur-deer all feature. It’s good to get to focus on them a bit.

The spoonwalker is nesting, and we get to see what colour baby spoonwalkers are! The teasleheads demonstrate critical stages of their curious life cycle. We have a dustcat wrecking ball – when dustcats are alarmed, they hold each other’s tails, meaning all the sharp bits go on the outside. Small angry cartwheels are more normal, but a full blown wrecking ball is a thing to behold – ideally from a safe distance! 

The ur-deer is a shy woodland creature, slightly alarming to behold. Mostly harmless. May attempt to run up you if you corner it, which you do not want it to do. The moths are mostly poisonous, annoying and likely to eat your underwear. There are quite a lot of moths in this volume, because we got a bit excited about them, and they are pretty, so long as they don’t bite you, and you don’t bite them.

Chapter 5, as presented above, involves builder squids. These were somewhat the fault of Dr Porridge, and live in a freshwater lake somewhere in the middle of the island. I have stories about them. I rather like the idea of squids making things.

Hopeless, Maine: Optimists is the fourth volume in the Sloth Comics editions of Hopeless, Maine and comes out at the end of March (2022). These are most readily available in the UK and can be ordered from bookshops and comics shops. Places that sell books online will likely sell them to you. A number of sites have the book on pre-order – Hive, The Portobello Bookshop, Blackwells, Bookshop.org, Book Depository , Foyles and Waterstones – currently Amazon doesn’t have anything useful going on, but that’s ok, you probably weren’t going to shop there anyway 🙂