Surfaces having no regular hypermaps

The central question of this paper is the Genus Question: For which N is it possible to draw a regular map or hypermap on the non-orientable surface of characteristic -N? We answer this question for all N from -1 to 50, and we display a body of theorems and techniques which can be used to settle the question for more complicated surfaces. These include: two ways to diagram an action of symmetry group, an equivalence relation on vertices (rotation centers in general), several applications of Sylow theory, and some non-Sylow observations on the size of the symmetry group.