Severed hands, crushed bones and a ‘monstrous mermaid with sharp teeth’: Reece Shearsmith on his dark obsessions

The League of Gentlemen and Inside No 9 co-creator has always displayed a sense of gothic unease, and his new book combines myth, memoir – and his own disquieting drawings When Reece Shearsmith was a boy, he overheard relatives chatting at a New Year gathering.