Welcome to Stranded!, my Strand Magazine-based April A to Z Blogging Challenge! In this challenge, I will be taking illustrations from The Strand Magazine and making new stories out of them. So, in order to fully appreciate the Stirring Events eventuating here, a look back at my older A TO Z entries is advisable. I promise you, they are short. Click Here to start with my Theme Reveal, or Click Here to start with A! It is also totally acceptable to just look at today’s post.
Today, I have two panels for you: the next Installment of Alfie’s Narrative, and a One-Shot. First, let us look in on Alfie.
Oh dear. Alfie’s life seems to be Complex, and even Imperiled. I really don’t like to think of it. I shall therefore turn my mind instead to the more pleasing and mundane topic of Decorum. In fact, I have made you, dear reader, a One-Shot concerning Decorum. Here it is; it may well be dull, but after that last panel, perhaps it will be a kind of Tonic for your frayed nerves.
The first image is from The Strand Magazine, No. 17; the second image is from No. 48.
And that’s all for today, folks! Thanks for visiting; stay as long as you like! There is a LOT of content on this blaugh, and (in my totally-not-humble opinion) most of it is Very Good. May I particularly recommend my older A To Zs? If you click on the header, it will whisk you away to my homepage, and there, you ought to find links to my Thrilling A To Zs of Aprils Past.
And please note the list of A To Z Fictioneers in my sidebar (or, if you are on a Mobile Device or a Tablet, it may be somewhere under the Comments Section). This list, of we few, we happy few, who are Doing Fiction for our A To Zs this year, will help you find more fiction to read. Also! If you yourself are Fictioneering for your A to Z this year, Comment and tell me so, and I will put you on the list!
Oh yes, and please do leave a comment in any case. Even if it is just “Hey, I exist, and I liked your thing.”
Until tomorrow, then!
Hey I exist and I liked your thing 🙂 Viditing from A to X
Hello Anne! 🙂 Thanks for taking me up on my request; also, thanks for stopping by! Hope you come again!
I absolutely love your theme. I admit, I’ve not spent much time with the Strand magazines other than having a set of Sherlock Holmes tales that have the old illustrations in them, so this is just plain fun. Thanks so much!
Hello Sharon! I’m glad you like my theme. The Strand Magazine is lots of fun to flip through; there is an illustration on (almost) every page. And some of the Holmes illustrations are really fun. I like best the ones where Watson is standing kind of behind Holmes, watching him Detect Things. Watson looks baffled and kind of sad in these, like a puppy who does not understand the game you are trying to play with him.
I made it! I just clambered up from A to here and loved every page. Wow, you’re clever!
Amble Bay’s May Fair
Hello Keith! Glad you made it through! Also– thanks! 🙂 Do drop by any time! I will be visiting Amble Bay again soon.
How interesting, Melanie. Such a unique and fascinating blaugh you have! Cheers, Denise
Thanks Denise! Glad you like the place; it could use some renovation, but I am really very fond of it, too. Also, I will be visiting you (and the Duke of Wellington) again soon!
Thanks for the lessons about ghosts. It was illuminating 😉
@JazzFeathers
The Old Shelter – 1940s Film Noir
Hello Sara! I do like to combine Amusement with Instruction in these little pieces. If I can save one Young Person from Social Ruin, I shall feel that my time has not been wasted.
And what if the man living in the room is ALSO a ghost? Then does it become inappropriate, or are supernatural spectres unbound by the rules or mortal Decorum?
M – You Can’t Shoot Mowglis in British Columbia
Sir! You ask an excellent question! It is a little beyond the scope of this work, and I fear that no really satisfactory study of the Etiquette of the Ever-After has as yet been completed, but I think I shall hazard an answer all the same. I should say that society Beyond the Veil is very mixed, what with all of those ancestors from More Robust Times mingling quite freely with the dead of more well-behaved epochs. Any system of etiquette would therefore be violated so often that it would become an Absurdity. Therefore (though it pains me to say this), I must assume that the spirit-world is unbounded by social rules and conventions, and that men and women may mingle freely in any room they choose– even in those rooms containing Beds.
Thank goodness! Yet another reason to look forward to the Afterlife, then.
That does explain why that ghost lady turned her nose up at my proposal. And attempted to drag me to the Netherworld where my soul would know naught but eternal suffering and several damnations at the hand of – err..ahem…
I should have studied up on the proper rules, is what I’m saying.
Oh dear! Yes, you had a Narrow Escape from…ahem… well, in short, a Narrow Escape. However, I think you are somewhat misinterpreting your ghost-lady’s actions. If she attempted to drag you into the Netherworld, this suggests that she is less indifferent to you than you suppose. It may even mean (and I say this not to alarm you, but to prepare you for possible unpleasantness) that a breach of promise case awaits you Beyond The Veil. I would advise that you stay alive as long as possible, to give the ghost-lady time to Forget.
As usual, things aren’t looking good for Alfie. When will he ever learn?
Discarded Darlings – Jean Davis, Speculative Fiction Writer, A to Z: Editing Fiction
When indeed? Let us hope that, by the end of this narrative, he is in a position to learn from his harrowing experiences…
That is a pretty handy life lesson. 😉 Given his state of undress, Alfie’s clothing search doesn’t seem to have panned out…
Yes, poor man, people keep taking his clothes.