Tales of humour, whimsy and courgettes
“What’s that?” asked Lily.
“Chicken feathers,” replied Sally. “Twenty-six bantam feathers to be exact. All of them piercing the skin around her kidneys.”
“So this could be a ritual murder,” said Lily.
“Certainly murder most fowl,” replied Sally.
Original photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash
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“Tell me about the body,” asked Lily.
“Well ma’am,” said Sally, “she appears to have received a dozen different injuries.”
“Such as?” asked Lily.
“Well to start with if you look here,” said Sally, “her eyes have been damaged by a blunt object. We suspect this was caused by this big book, found by her feet.”
Lily picked up the text, Chemistry For Beginners. “So, she was blinded by science.”
Original photo by Kiwihug on Unsplash
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“What have we got?” asked DCI Lily.
“A mass murder,” replied Inspector Sally. “With one victim.”
Lily raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“Well ma’am,” replied Sally. “We have eight murder weapons with blood on. Six potential motives. A lot of blood on the walls and one body inside this apartment.”
Lily knelt next to the corpse. “What’s this inside her mouth?”
“The coroner believes it’s the contents of a vacuum cleaner bag,” replied Sally. “She’s unsure if that’s what caused her death.”
“Well, we know one thing,” sighed Lily. “She bit the dust.”
New story time! Woot, woot! Gave the video a slight update. Love my new end screen. I don’t mean to sound vain, but it looks awesome.
Look! Down there! New buttons! That’s a pleasant update. Need to clean up the Threadless button, but otherwise, much nicer than the old ones.
Also, I now have a Ko-Fi page instead of a PayPal tip jar. For those that fancy dropping me a few pennies but don’t like Patreon.
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Thank you. Thank you for supporting me this last 18 months with the Little Fears. Thank you for supporting me on Patreon. Thank you for buying my books, tees and art prints. Thank you for sharing my posts. Thank you for dropping pennies in the tip jar. Thank you for turning up so often to leave a groan or chuckle. You are all absolutely fabulous.
So I think, after a two years run of bad luck. The loss of my entire life savings. Not seeing my missus in over a year. Much boo-hoo and stress, I may be about to sell my house. For those that have known me since before Fears started, you know what a big deal this is to me. I’m not popping the champagne yet as there’s one teeny hurdle to hop over, but I am now basing the next 3-4 months on being homeless. I may have to stay at my missus mum and dads house in the middle of the Scottish mountains with flaky internet at best with 4G style data caps. In addition to lacking internet, I’ll be sorting her parent’s house out into a liveable state during the time I stay there as it’s currently darn near uninhabitable.
So, without knowing how much time, peace or internet I am planning out the Little Fears website until 22nd of October.
I grew up watching seventies and eighties cops shows. My dad allowed me to watch the Sweeney. I followed that with The Professionals. Then moved onto murder mysteries. David Suchet is Poirot. I shall not acknowledge any other attempt. I adore both Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie as Marple. I even love the riffs off of sleuths and buddy cop programs. The British fantasy shows, Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes were my idea of TV heaven. Also, who can forget The Detectives with Jasper Carrot and Robert Powell?
The gist here is I love a good crime story. So the next ninety stories on the Little Fears will make up three cops and robbers crime capers. Each story will be thirty tales long and follow DCI Lily and Inspector Sally as they solve crimes.
We will start with a sleuthing tale. Lily and Sally attending a crime scene where a woman’s been killed in a variety of ways with far too many motives. We follow that with a Starsky and Hutch style escapade as the intrepid duo chase down a master thief. The final story sees the pair in hot pursuit of a serial killer who’s also committed the heinous crime of putting pineapple on a pizza.
(I’ll add there, as a vegetarian, I’m pro-pizza-pineapple. Don’t tell Lily that!)
I’ll be posting these stories Monday to Friday as they form a singular narrative. Each story is entirely self-contained but they have a stronger overall story than Grey Moon and Seeking Hydra. If the names Lily and Sally sound familiar, yes, that is the name of my little arsehole Jack Russells.
I’m currently getting ahead on the audio for Lily and Sallys case files. I’ll be doing one more series of videos in the current format. Once I have moved home, I want a chair, with a tartan blanket thrown over it. I will sit in this chair and tell the stories to a camera. Some real Jackanory bedtime stories. With a dog on my lap and another dog at my feet. A cup of tea in one hand. A book in the other hand. Some digestive biscuits in the other hand. My trademark oddness and humour stamped all over the videos. That’s how I see them. It’s just going to be impossible to do that for the next three to four months. Blah. Something to look forward too!
As I’m doing the tales, Monday to Friday, I’ll be moving the Colour Collective portraits to the weekend. I know they don’t get as much of a response as the daily tales, but I love doing the Fears portraits. By keeping the weekly portraits it ensures the Little Fears aren’t purely puns. A lot of bloggers insist you need to stay niche, I disagree. I say stay to a theme. If I niche the Fears as pure puns and nothing else, I think I’d get bored of them.
Speaking of not niching myself to puns…
Oh man, what to do about horror. My next set of horror stories was going to be a 90 tale run of Denver going in search of his partner, Malcolm. The problem is I wrote it as a continuous story. I don’t think that’s going to work unless I post them daily like I will be with the Crime Capers storyline.
What would work is a Seeking Hydra style background plot to ninety stories. For those that are new to the Fears, Seeking Hydra was ninety tales mostly puns, that were nearly all separate. But had a theme of Hydra seeking his identity throughout. That would work with a story I’m only going to post once a week. I think I need to do a quick strategy change here on horror. Like the art, it stops me being fully niched into puns and I feel scary stories and weird fiction is now an important part of the Little Fears. I need to figure that out… For now, Denver’s search for Malcolm is on hold.
From obstructions can come creative thinking though. This is the kick that I need to start the horror postcards series. Images of spooky happenings, strange goings on and blood-curdling terrors accompanied by single sentence horror stories. It would be both different and in theme for the Little Fears. Maybe that should be my next thirty horrors.
It’s been forever since I did a collaboration with anyone. I started three since the last one and each time the other party lost interest or wandered off. I have a few good folks looking to do collabs. But I’ll be unable to do audio recording until I get my new house. Not sure what to do there.
If anybody wants to take the lead on a collab that doesn’t require my voice, leave me a comment. I’m brain farting on what to collab on at the moment though.
One collaboration I have kept up is the Movigos. We spoke about dropping it from weekly to monthly and making it more an event. Perfect timing for me after this week. I wouldn’t be able to keep up weekly while I’m semi-homeless. Just need to sort something new out with the gang.
If you want to find us on Twitter, hit the hashtag #Movigos. Member list shamelessly ripped from Weird Shit with Alex.
Alex – https://weirdshitwithalex.blog/
Amberley – https://fuckthelemonade.wordpress.com/
Elijah – https://elijahrichard.com/
Eric – https://ericshayhoward.com/
Layne – https://chewing-on-glass.com/
Mel – https://fictioninmyhead.com/
Ward – https://wardclever.wordpress.com/
And of course, if you wish to drop a few pennies in the tip jar, Patreon subs are always appreciated. Even just $1 a month contributes to the whole and enables me to continue waking you good people with a smile and a groan. Thank you.
https://www.patreon.com/littlefears
As I mentioned yesterday, Grey Moons last story was published on the Little Fears website this week. Along with Capricorns final page. A letter to the illustrator.
I’m afraid I lack good photos of the book. Both my copies were sent up to Scotland a year ago where I was meant to follow two to three months later. A year later… Life aye? Still, it looks like my two years bad luck run with the flat may be coming to an end. Some progress has been made on the sale. If it happens in June I’ll be homeless for a few months until I’m able to buy a new house. So darned happy today.
Capricorns horror stories were about the best thing I did early on in the Little Fears life. By establishing horror and weird fiction alongside the humour, I gave myself a huge amount of flexibility in what I can draw and write here. I love telling Little Fears groaners, but if that’s all this website was, I think it would be a bit poorer.
The horror shorts came about from a deep love of the old British horror and sci-fi radio shows along with theTwilight Zones and Outer Limits.
Capricorns horror shorts are available as an ebook and a paperback. I’d usually say something piffy about sniffing books, but in this case, I’d sniff with caution. You don’t know if she’s going to reach off the cover and drag you into one of her horrors within.
Fancy the risk? Well OK, I did warn you. She’s available on Amazon from the links below.
She’s also available on my Etsy store.
My good friend Joseph from WikiPoem recently asked about getting a tattoo of Capricorn. Brave man! I’ve never heard of a tattoo dragging its bearer into the pits of horror, but it sure sounds possible!
Finally, if you have a custom request for an illustration, doodle or fear you have seen here, just let me know in comments. Another good friend from WordPress, Eric of Dogtown (who I feel like I’ve known forever!), put in a request the other day. I’m quite happy to offer reprints of older illustrations.
Little Fears sales posts are like a British bus service. Nothing for ages, then two come along at once…
Well, I finished publishing two books on this site this week. My most recent humorous book, Grey Moon, was one of them.
Over the last three months, my three leading ladies, Fuen, Yuffie and Reala have made their way through 84 tales of ornithology, penguins, rum, love and splinters.
For a book I totally failed to promote on release, it’s received some great reviews over time. On Amazon and Good Reads, it sits at 4.5 out of 5 stars. For a more in-depth review, my good friend Richard has gone into detail in his review of Grey Moon this week.
It’s been an enjoyable story to tell and nice having an all-female cast. That was never intended as a social or political statement, but it’s been lovely hearing from folk who took it as a positive representation of women and LBGT in fiction.
If you’d like to grab a copy of Grey Moon, you can hit the links below. The paperback’s pretty darned sexy and smells lovely. It would make a great present for someone who enjoys sniffing new paperbacks. And reading. It’d be good for some who likes reading too.
“So here we are.”
“Yep.”
“Hang on.”
“There we go.”
“Oooooh!”
“OOOOOOH!”
“OH WOW! OH WOMAN, WOOOOW!”
“Crikey hun! You weren’t that good ten years ago!”
“YeAH aNd thIs feNCe wAsNt EleCtrifIeD TEN YeaRs AgOOoo!”
“Ack…”
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“That took some explaining,” laughed Saturn. “Hey look at that! They’ve done some work on the beer garden out back.”
“Yeah, that’s where we first did the business,” grinned Jessie.
“Yep, up against the fence at the back,” said Saturn. “Say. Wanna have a go there again. For old times sake.”
“Sure,” said Jessie. “I’m up for some beer garden nookies!”
“Hey, at least they replaced the rickety old wooden fence with a metal one,” said Saturn. “The splinters I got last time were a planetary pain in the arse!”
“Ah, yes,” laughed Jessie. “I remember you asking on a web forum about the best ways of removing wood splinters from your bum.”
“Yep,” grumbled Saturn. “Bad post…”
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Capricorn (ep. 84)
Dear Illustrator
Residents are reminded that rubbish is to be placed out front of the block after 6 pm Thursdays. No recycling or items over 1 metre allowed.
I would also like to remind you, pets are not allowed in any apartments. Whatever is, we can hear it.
We sacrifice David on the altar in the basement at midnight on Friday.
Tea and biscuits will be served afterwards.
Kind regards
Doris
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“I always thought our second time together was better,” said Jessie. “Though that phone call we got afterwards was a funny one.”
“The woman who phoned me up screaming about what a dirty girl you were,” laughed Saturn. “How you’d split up her relationship by tempting her partner into bed…”
“I remember,” laughed Jessie. “I said ‘Hey you listen here! If the problem you have with your partner is so bad, you should tell them that!'”
“Yeah,” groaned Saturn. “Then you handed the phone to me…”
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Little Fears 