dream jobs part 1

i'm starting a new semi-regular feature here at blarg (though, i suppose "semi-regular" could be used to describe just about everything to do with how i keep this site...).

"Dream Jobs". which is really just as it sounds. each installment will consist of three elements: the project, the pitch, and, most gloomily, the reason no one will ever let me do it ...

and with that ringingly positive description let's start with:

the project: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy!
the pitch:

pretty much a direct adaptation of the radio series... all twenty-six episodes! if you figure about 23-30 minutes per episode -- taking into account the differences in the two media, dropping out a few of the wordier bits of exposition, drawing out some extra colour from the novels, as well as all of the wonderfully alien characters and environs that only comics can fully realize-- that should translate fairly well to a 22-24 page comic for each. or a 44 page european style album for each two, or a 144 page ogn for each "phase", etc, etc, etc... all adapted (though probably with help) and drawn by me, with the excerpts from "the book" -- and since we're dealing with tom's perfect dream-world let's just keep dreamin'-- drawn by chip zdarsky (or as he likes to be called now, mrs. edith nausbaum) in the style he uses for his national post "extremely bad advice" column. funny funny funny stuff...

i've found myself drawing this stuff like a madman in my spare time... and i've been finding marvin to be the toughest nut to crack. these are the three best iterations so far...

first one's good but a bit too scrawny. he'd work well, though, as the generic model for all the other robots to be built off from...
this guy's getting closer, he's got that could fall apart at any moment and is slightly testy about it look that i always picture marvin with...
this is the one i'm happiest with. still not sure about the head, the body's exactly as i picture it when i'm listening...

the reason no one will ever let me do it: two reasons, really.

first: it's already been done... poorly (or, at least that's how everyone who remembers it remembers it.)

and second: there's been a movie. once hollywood shoots it's mostly corrupted and ill conceived wad, that's usually just about it for any comic version. unless your average modern comic publisher can sniff out the pungent aroma of option money rising off your project, they won't go anywhere near it; let alone something they'd have to license. add to that the movie, tragically, not being all that good.

(let me just back that up before i get jumped on... everything on screen that was pure unadulterated douglas adams, shot through the henson lens, and even with the disney "let's put 'mericans in it so 'mericans will watch it" filter (mos def, sam rockwell, even zooey deschannel): good, all good. hell, mos def was outstanding. everything else (i'm looking at you karey kirkparick): malkovitch, the truth gun, the alien dmv, the tacked on love story/happy ending... bad. very bad. tragically, horribly, egregiously bad. i mean come on! he hadn't even read the fudding book!!! that said we do own the movie, for all of the above "good" reasons.)

all of this means the chances of a comic book publisher committing to this kind of major undertaking, without anything other than comic/trade sales on the back end are about as good as me riding a hippo drawn battle wagon through the tim hortons drive thru...

but then who knows?... maybe ballantine would be interested...

edit: on a totally unrelated topic, i just had to do a google image search of "monkey" for a job (yeah... "had to"), and it came up with this. awesome.