h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, just between me, you and the garden fence - now I've a foot in the other camp I can tell you this much...there's a world of difference between things that get rejected because they are 'nearly' worthy of acceptance and those that are... errm 'less nearly'
Sub-eds have to stick to sub-ed guidelines as posted for the world to see. So if anyone submits an article that can validly be turned down for any of the reasons given then it probably will be. There's no cloak-and-dagger about it - we have a 'charter' of sorts and that's what we work to. And the reason the rejections come from Mark is because he is the Editor, the Big Cheese, Numero Uno, Head Guy...
no matter what we sub-eds mark as worthy of submission/acceptance/whatever, the final say is with him and the rest of the TDV staff. And he/they have a duty to keep the quality up. As do we all...and that reminds me, now I must actually do some work

Dear Catherine,
Thank you ever so much for submitting your h2g2 Guide Entry entitled "Flying Pigs" for the approval of the Editors.
Unfortunately it hasn't quite managed to gain the approval of the Editorial team, but perhaps the following comments from the Editor concerned will help you to understand why.
"Unfortunately we aren't approving articles that are fictional anymore, and the concept of flying pigs sure isn't fact. Oh well..."

yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada yada

Best wishes,Mark Moxon
Editor, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Earth Edition

Thanks Cafran, I suppose I will now have to dump my White Elephant article.

And the Pink Panther, Skippy the bush kangaroo, Kermit the Frog, a whole plethora of Disney characters, exploding sheep, Mr Ed the talking horse and numerous others.

All that work wasted. *Sigh*

I think I replied to the wrong article or something....I'm not quite sure what happened....there was a lot of beer involved....it was late at night....I woke up in a strange bed....?

You're perfectly sane, Caf... It's this thread that has mulitple identities.

Beware, we walk in the forum of ....

I object to the inference that my sanity is perfect.

Anonymouse, Bruce, The Wisest Fool and Cafram I have posted your rejection slips and comments on a new page creatively and imaginatively named "Rejection Slips Page 2". It lives at http://www.h2g2.com/P188994

I have linked the original page to it. This helps keep both pages down to readable sizes.

I have also changed the text editor so it posts to the correct forum.

Thanks Loony.


;^)#

Nicely done...simple, succint, and rather witty. Just two questions:

1. Could we do without the hideous mustard yellow in the introduction?
2. Are the Allies still fighting the Germans in World War Eleven?

Here's an 8 for you to wear as a mask on your future missions, with wishes for success.

I'm still eagerly awaiting my first rejection slip...all the response I've gotten so far was the acceptance of my "American Football" piece (which was incorporated into the massive football article that loony brought up earlier...sorry dude). I've written a ton of stuff, and it's all still in limbo. Sigh.

Thanks GargleBlaster. I will change the colour to lime. World War II is Roman numerals. I will change it to the word Two for clarity.

For the low-down on rejection/acceptance slips there is an article on my home page which used to link to this forum but now does not.

Despite your loose talk regarding the kumquats I enjoyed your pop-psyche take on a pop culture phenomenon. It's a nice tight light
piece of writing & hopefully should sneak past some of the more obstreperous subbies. good luck.

Thanks. I will have to fluke either an Aussie, Irish or Kiwi sub I feel

What makes a comic book hero? There's nothing here that shows a reader how you defined your list. Having read many comics when I was younger there also seem to be a few major omissions. Of course, not every character should be included, but I would have thought the likes of Spider Man and Captain America would have made the list. The article seems to "note" like. Either increase the explanation of each character or incorporate them into a bigger text about comic heroes in general.

This has the makings of a good article, but I don't feel it's there yet.

5.

There are comic books and characters outside the English-speaking world although you wouldn't know it from the article. Anime is massive in Japan and they have porno comic books too. And in the UK there's something called 'Viz Comic' which is a lavatory level piss-take of older British comics like Dandy, The Beano etc. Instead of 'Dennis The Menace' (a slightly mischievous child character from 'The Beano'), Viz features anti-heroes like 'Sid the Sexist' who tries and fails every issue to get his end away. For more info, try http://www.viz.co.uk
Maybe you'd do better to concentrate on American comics like DC / Marvel and change the emphasis to "American Superheroes".
- TWF

Thanks for the comments The Dancing Tree. I don't believe people read long, wordy, guide submissions/entries. Pithy and snappy seems to be the norm.

The article does say it is a selected, not complete, list. Everyone seems to have their own personal favourite 'Super Hero'. Maybe it will be rejected as opinion. Time will tell.

Links to the selected comic characters web pages will be included in the final submitted guide entry. I will also link to a few other h2g2 postings on comics. The introduction will contain a paragraph on what criteria I used to define a "Super Hero'.

I note h2g2 encourages links to other h2g2 entries in their researcher guidelines. Does anyone know if they also want links to 'outside' web sites?

On outside links: I say use them when they're warranted, withhold them when they're not, and let the editors remove them if they don't want them.

Pithy and snappy may be the norm, but they are also the entires that tend to get kicked out most often. Judging by the stuff we've accepted recently, wordy articles do get read *and* accepted. Certainly, if I have an interest in something I'd be happy to sit and read it rather than have a brief article to gloss over.

Consider and expansion - I think it would be worthwhile, and the comments regarding non-English comics are probably worthwhile, even for "heroes". Two that spring to mind are Usagi Yojimbo, and the Japanese version of the Mutant Turtles.