New original Hitchhiker TV Series artwork on ebay

Rod Lord has put on auction four more Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy TV series artworks. Be careful it's just three day long auctions.


H2G2_ AW_011 : Babel Fish Sequence (early design)

"An item from the early stages of the Babel Fish sequence, the first half of which constituted the initial pilot test piece for the BBC.This item is an early "key" pencil drawing on 305x252 mm animation paper made by Rod Lord in the early stages of planning and layout for the part of the sequence where the Babel Fish turns head on in the centre of screen while a human head appears on the left and an Alien head on the right."

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290584173244&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123

H2G2_ AW_012 : Babel Fish Sequence (early design)

"An item from the early stages of the Babel Fish sequence, the first half of which constituted the initial pilot test piece for the BBC.
This item is an early "key" pencil drawing on 305x252 mm animation paper made by Rod Lord in the early stages of planning and layout for the part of the sequence where the Babel Fish turns head on in the centre of screen while a human head appears on the left and an Alien head on the right.
The drawing on the left fixed with masking tape is an early stage of the change from the earlier more rounded style to the more "digital" feel of the final animation.
On the back of the drawing is an early stab at a similar change for the Alien's brain."

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290584177955&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123

H2G2_ AW_013 : Babel Fish Sequence (early design)

"Items from the early stages of the Babel Fish sequence, the first half of which constituted the initial pilot test piece for the BBC.
These two animation cells were traced by Rod Lord and intended for the part of the sequence where the Babel Fish turns head on in the centre of screen while a human head appears on the left and an Alien head on the right.
When these cells were traced the intention was to paint them on the back in the conventional animation technique and use them as artwork layers under the rostrum camera using normal top lighting. They never got painted because the whole approach to technical production changed."

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290584571172&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123


H2G2_ AW_014 : Babel Fish Sequence (early design)

Items from the early stages of the Babel Fish sequence, the first half of which constituted the initial pilot test piece for the BBC.

This package represents the initial design work for the shift from the early more rounded style to the straighter more digital feel used for the finished work.

1 - A pencil drawing on 305x252 mm animation paper for the Babel Fish.
2 - A pencil drawing on 305x252 mm animation paper for the innards.
3 - A pencil drawing on 305x252 mm animation paper for the skeleton.
4 - An animation cell with a painted outline of the Babel Fish intended for the early intention of conventional top-lighting under the rostrum camera.
5 - An animation cell with a painted mask designed to be used over the outline for when the innards layer would be added.


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290584182030&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123

H2G2.com's future : the bright side of life?

On 24 January 2011, the BBC announced cuts of 25% to its online budget and that it wanted to close or dispose of 200 websites...  including H2G2.com. The H2G2 researchers soon gathered in The H2G2 Community Consortium to try to save H2G2.com

After months of anguish, yesterday, 21th June, The BBC have confirmed the success of the three-way bid by Robbie Stamp, the Community Consortium and Noesis.  

As you certainly know, Robbie Stamp was the former chairman of The Digital Village, the e-company co-founded by Douglas Adams and which released the Starship Titanic computer game and launched h2g2.com in 1999.

Other members of the winning team are Noesis Systems (http://noesify.com/) is an international social media provider and the the h2g2c3 (the interim H2G2 comunity consortium comitee!) which acts on behalf of the h2g2 community.

It's great to have Robbie Stamp on board again, ant the team seems very enthusiasts.

"Our primary objective in this first phase will be to transition h2g2 from the BBC onto Noesis servers. This part of the operation has been dubbed 'No Researcher Left Behind'. We will migrate entries and conversations to Noesis servers and match researchers with their personal spaces. More details of this project are forthcoming, but in the meantime, Don't Panic.

Once h2g2 is running stably and researchers settled into our new home, Phase Two begins and it will be time to focus our attention on building traffic, publishing more official entries more quickly, improving user experience and seeking ways to build revenue, which are likely to include sponsorship and advertising. The original h2g2 was supported by advertising.

Volunteerism has always played a major role in the success of h2g2. Soon teams of volunteers will be assuming the duties currently performed by BBC staff: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A85803384

An overview of the current volunteer schemes can be found here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A42623219. Your help is very welcome.

If Phase Two is successful then it is the clear intention to move to Phase Three, which will mean the creation of a fully commercial 'for profit' entity, with its own Board. This company will assume operational control of the site, will be granted an exclusive world wide license to develop the assets held by the Foundation and will be able to seek external investors.

The Commercial 'trading arm' will be mandated to return a percentage of profits and/or a royalty to the Foundation, which will also be free to fund raise to support its activities in the way that any Charity would be.

It also is our intention to find a 'felt fair' mechanism to reward researchers building the Guide, should we all have created significant value at some stage in the future. Indeed now we have won the bid, we are working with the lawyers to establish the deeds for the Trust and to create the best way of doing just that.

The Community will also have the right to elect a Board Member to the Commercial Company and to elect a Trustee to the Charity Board.

At this stage we would intend that some paid staff be taken on to work full- and part-time with the volunteers. There will also be business development activities as we look for partners, sponsors and advertisers.

Alongside the development of the site, the emphasis in Phase Three will very much be on mobile development. It is this phase, the ability to deliver the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on smart phones, that will really take us a big step closer to realizing Douglas's original vision.

One thing that h2g2 has always done very well is develop writers. Through the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Foundation we can develop writers not only through the tried-and-true Peer Review process here on the site but also through schools, online tutorials and other charitable trusts. As more writers join our ranks we can build our Guide to Life, The Universe and Everything faster.

This strategy gives us a chance to build on Douglas Adams's original vision. It shows deep respect for and includes the Community, is broken down into realistic steps and has social responsibility at its heart with the creation of the Foundation."

The full text is here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/forums/A639056/conversation/view/F77636/T8244180

Upcoming new H2G2 videogame

This was announced on towel day. Hothead Games will release a new game adaptation of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy... almost thirty years after the famous Infocom text adventure.

Right now we don't have any further informations. We don't know what kind of game it will be or on which platform it will run, and even when it will be actually released!

Hothead's most famous game is DeathSpank, a game released on XBoxlive and PSN for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 : "Created by Ron Gilbert, the legendary mind behind Monkey Island, DeathSpank is the rarest of the rare: an honestly funny, fun video game" according to Hothead games! Here is a review at ign :  http://uk.xboxlive.ign.com/articles/110/1106111p1.html

Hothead Games has also released "Bunny and the Zombie Slayer" and "Chromanoids" for iphone, and also "Precipe of darkness",  an episodic RPG/Adventure based on the popular comic strip "Penny Arcade" (pc/mac/PSN/XboxLive).

Hothead games has launched a website (well a webpage right now) for the upcoming Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy game that you can see here

Happy Towel Day 2011 !!

Check http://www.towelday.org - There are Towel Day events everywhere in the world !!!

Don't forget your towel !

Ten years...

Douglas Adams passed away the 11th May 2001 in California. He was only 49 years old. He had so many things do yet. He is still dearly missed by his family and his fans.

Hitchhiker Live 2012 : Exclusive interview with Dirk Maggs !

Dirk Maggs (the guy in the middle of the picture) during the rehearsals of Hitchhiker Live at the Hitchcon in 2009

Dirk Maggs, who is going to adapt and direct the upcoming Hitchhiker Live event that will tour the UK in 2012, has agreed to answer a few questions in exclusivity for douglasadams.eu.

Read Dirk Maggs' answers about the upcoming HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY RADIO SHOW - LIVE

H2G2 live will tour the UK in 2012!!!

Some days ago, James Thrift, Douglas Adams' brother, announced that we should "Watch out for some fantastic Hitchhikers news on it's way soon!"

Simon Jones finally announced it on Radio 3 on Monday 25th : "THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY RADIO SHOW - LIVE !" will be "a major UK touring event for 2012".

The show will  star all the main original cast still alive including SIMON JONES as ARTHUR DENT GEOFFREY McGIVERN as FORD PREFECT STEPHEN MOORE as MARVIN SUSAN SHERIDAN as TRILLIAN and MARK WING-DAVEY as ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX.

The show will be adapted, written and directed by DIRK MAGGS (yes the genius who did Hitchhiker Live at the Hitchcon and also adapted and directed the three last books of H2G2 for Radio 4 and also the two Dirk Gently books). PHILIP POPE will be the musical director.


Of course, this is great news for all Hitchhiker fans! I hope to publish an interview with Dirk Maggs very soon on http://www.douglasadams.eu.

Here is the press release : "Arthur Dent is having a bad day. Both his house and his planet have been demolished. The girl he really - really - fancies is on the third arm of a two-headed alien. His best friend isn't from Guildford after all, but a small planet near Betelgeuse. He can't find a decent cup of tea because there's no such thing any more. And he's still wearing his dressing gown.
Next year, UK theatre audiences will be able to experience the world's favourite sci-fi comedy at first hand, by those who helped create it, from the Heart Of Gold to the Restaurant At the End Of The Universe, performed live on stage by Simon Jones and the original Hitchhiker's cast, re-creating their iconic characters in a radio-style show filled with laughter, really wild sound effects and drinks with extremely silly names.
Douglas Adams's legendary comic sci-fi saga is packed with unique cultural and comedy 'firsts'. It spawned six best-selling novels, five award-winning BBC Radio series, a Television series and a blockbuster movie. Translated worldwide, it was voted Number One Audiobook Ever and one of the Best Loved Books In Britain. Its unique, irreverent and hilarious views on everything from Tea-making to Towels have won it an ever-growing band of devoted readers, listeners and viewers. This self- contained adventure will introduce newcomers to Babel Fish, Marvin the Paranoid Android and the Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe And Everything, while delighting Hitchhiker fans of all ages.
Directed by Dirk Maggs - Douglas Adams's choice to conclude the saga in its original medium - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Radio Show Live will explode on tour in the UK in 2012.
   
Whatever else you do in 2012, make sure you know where your towel is ..." 

Note that the event will soon have its own website here : http://www.hhgglive.com