*
What a treat saying hi to actual Twain readers in San Diego! A number of you came by the First Second booth, and picked up some of the odd assorted Twainery on offer—including a hint in a bottle… We also had our first Twain Meet-Up! A handful of us toured the Berkeley, a genuine 1898 Steam Ferry—invaluable research!—and had a wonderful time over a bite afterward. I do hope this is the first of many, in all kinds of places.
Here are a few atmospheric images of the vessel, which we had all to ourselves for an hour that night. Looks like if it weren’t haunted, it should be. Even on that subject, Anne regaled us with some great ship history (I was back the next day on the Star of India, Anne!) Many thanks to all of you! (Hilary, send photos?)
About those little bottles with messages—there are six different hints, so if you got one, do share it with friends online and elsewhere.
At San Diego the River Opener pendant by Allison Hourcade of RockLove.com was also for sale (just the element you see in The Overture). Quite a few die-hard RockLove fans managed to zero-in on it, among the zillions of things on display in the show. As many told me: it’s even more irresistible in real life than in the photos. There’s something most peculiar about seeing these things exist in the material world.
Some of you also got the first glimpse of the Lorelei stationery! The box set contains a set of nine cards with matching envelopes and three different bits of Twain artwork. Designer Lissi Irwin created this signature set, I’m proud to say, and it’s going to be available for purchase here on the site… She drew from designs of actual 1890′s steamboat letterhead, and I love what she did here.
But that’s not all!
The long awaited * SHIP’S LETTERS AND LOVE NOTES * button is going live, and there’s a very unique service being offered: a 19th century style calligraphic hand on your own correspondence. Is this completely going against the grain of our day and age? Please let me know what you think! And I’d really welcome ideas about how to promote this, and to whom.
As the present pages of the story may suggest, the letter-writing theme is taking hold in our story. Much more of it as we go, and perhaps this too will spill over into our daily reality.
Yes, I can imagine Mark doing research on the Berkeley with notepad, sketchbook and/or camera.
First off —today’s page: Panel four combined with the words “edible” and “juicy”?
PERFECT!
Secondly, that ship does look haunted…everyone double check your photos for mysterious anomalies! Wish I could have been there to meet everyone.
You’re really doing a superb job with the ENTIRE Sailor Twain experience Mark!
I hope you had a chance to talk to the guy who watched the engine room on the Berkley. He’s the one who told me how crews in the ‘good old days’ dealt w/walking beam engines that stopped with the piston at top or bottom dead center (think about that…how does it get moving again?). Firstly: it was the engineer’s job to make sure that didnt happen, if it did, I was told they would use a jack screw to manually move the crank to a position where the piston could move again.
PS: Berkley didnt have a walking beam engine. I think it had a triple expansion (three cylinders) steam engine, so the problem didnt happen for them.
Great page and great photos! Really wonderful! It will be so fun to see more photos of the event and meet-up! And a plea to those lucky souls who got clues–please do share! Post them here or direct us to where we might find them!
Mark, to promote your letters/love notes, there’s a ready-made community in the Steampunk subculture. I expect they’d be all over something like that, even though ST isn’t really of that genre. The idea of something so nineteenth-centuyrish (and handmade) would probably be enough to hook ’em in.
Hey, I’m what do you use to get the whites so white if you’ve drawn black and needed to erase it for some reason. I’m working with conte and I needed to erase a portion but couldn’t get rid of the inkings of black. Ugh.
Mark, people love handwritten wedding invitations; have you thought about contacting wedding planners? Corporate event planners might be interested as well. I’d think anyone doing harbor tours or river cruises as well, perhaps?
Mary Beth: The meetup was nothing short of magical. Mark has decidedly captured the essence in his pics.
As for clues, mine is number 4 of 6, and relates to previous info about Red Turtle. I think this part is significant: “For a time my people joined me in this place that is neither earth nor sky.” The rest is also lovely, and is written in beautifull calligraphy. A real treasure!
Anybody want to compare?
Mark, I am so glad you were able to get to the Star! I hope you found some interesting tidbits there as well.
Oh, and is it just me, or is Lafayette a little too … relaxed for a man whose brother has supposedly just been hideously killed?