This month sees publication of our newest print issue, Hobart #14. As such, and as we have done to accompany our last few print issues, we are devoting the entire month to various "bonus materials" -- photo essays, alternate endings, drawings, extra short fictions, interviews, & more! Below, some drawings (and accompanying excerpts) by Kate and Joe for their Buffalo-Prize-winning story (chosen by Jess Stoner), "Scratch Patrol Presents: The Big Game," included in #14.
Noggs:
“Noggs had all his limbs plus something extra—a nose that extended far past his facemask. The schnoz was ornamental—he breathed through his neck gills like all of us. He was proud of the nose.” (p. 108)
Radfoot:
"After the game I tottered on my nubs back to my pod, not in the players’ luxury boxes but under them. I had some gruel for dinner. As I sipped I could smell the cheese from Barnacle’s stadium nachos upstairs and my gills flapped wildly. We malformed ones never got the good stuff. The players told us announcing or statskeeping or ankle-wrapping don’t take the same energy as skull-cracking.” (p. 108)
Orlick:
"I interviewed a couple new players coming up, standard questions: Did you have a tough incubation? What kind of sweatbands do you wear? Do you keep a lucky jock? Who’s your dream endorsement deal? How do you prepare mentally for gameday? How long have you been on Scratch Patrol? And finally, which player do you most admire? Every one of them said Orlick. He had a generation of followers after only half a season. He was single-handedly erasing the game’s institutional memory with every veteran he hobbled.” (p. 110)
