This one may come as a surprise to most of you. ;)
I love Douglas Adams' books. So it wasn't hard to decide when I was asked if I'd illustrate one of the comic series of Hitch-hiker's guide.
I had the benefit of an apprentice, Richard, at the time. So I got him to work with me, going through the books to refresh my memories of the story. And to augment the limited information provided by the script adaptation. Soon enough we found that the 'script' writer hadn't read the books very attentively. And errors of misapplied dialogue were a sign that he wasn't paying attention. I just made the corrections and moved along. I was enjoying the characters too much to let something trivial spoil it.
I'd first heard the radio series back when I was living in that little farm-worker's cottage in the depths of the Sussex countryside, drawing the Bionic Woman annuals for Brown and Watson. Radio had never been so good since the Goon show! And that haunting banjo melody by Bernie Leadon of the Eagles, was guaranteed to make me stop and listen. Yep. I was a fan!! ;)
So, when I'd pencilled the first 50 plus pages, I was not best pleased to hear that I had to 'change' all the characters. I wasn't allowed to use any form of resemblance to the TV characters, for copyright reasons. "Ahem... I could have really used that kind of crucial information some 50 odd pages back, guys!!!" Oh, and we want that editorial change and this little tweak here. 'Oh, for no good reason. Just because we're the editors and we say so.'
So I told them where to stick the fifty plus pages.
And that's why no one knew I'd ever even started work on a Douglas Adams project. And, when I actually saw what kind of artwork they had for the rest of the series - I was very happy not to be part of it!
A pretty random selection of images. ;)
