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

This week I decided to donate some 13-year-old doodles to a Scottish Museum in Scotland. I had a reply from someone in the Group Archives & Museum department saying that they've looked at the samples and actually would like to receive it.

<BB<

Wow! Well done - fame!

Your doodles are very good - you have a pleasing comic style Did it take you long to do each one?

Does it look like I spent a lot of time on each picture?!?!?!
Most pictures were quite simple – two heads, one on the left, one on the right, with some dialogue. Maybe a couple of lines between them to represent the glass counter. Women's heads might mean using up to three biros and a highlighter (black line for most of the head, blue biro for an eye, red biro for lips and yellow highlighter for hair if she is blonde). I never claimed to be an but it was a simple style that worked and did everything I wanted it to do.

<BB<

(Or to put it another way, if it had taken long to draw each picture, I wouldn't have drawn almost 3,000 of 'em in only 3 years).

<BB<

In other words, your letter was a troll? You are evil.

If you keep up this persecution of institutions, you may collect enough material for a book along the lines of 'Letters from a Nut':

http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Nut-Ted-L-Nancy/dp/B000SR7RNS

Which is a good book, by the way, and might give you ideas....although I hesitate to suggest this.

I'll have you know I contacted them on Monday and clearly specified that what I was considering donating was drawn in the margin of a cheap notepad using biros and highlighters between 2005-2008. I also explained that over the last 10 years or so the highlighters’ faded and the notepads' have discoloured to grey. I also said that 'there’s 586 pages' (586 pages at usually 5 images per page equals about 2,930 pictures) and provided a link to an online sample.

They've replied to say that yes, they're interested. Does that count as trolling, eh? Just a shame they've bunged the museum in Scotland of all places...

<BB<

I would say that constitutes trolling on both sides. Expert trolling, at that.

May we view this online sample? I'm NOT going to suggest sending it to the Post, for fear that you will send me all 586 pages with tables...

Yes, 586 pages is rather epic! I'm up to Page 28...

I'm impressed that you could do them so quickly, so that is artistic skill indeed (of a specific kind)

I sent 4 pages to e-mail address just for you to look at, but it isn't for The Post. At the time I drew this I was commuting on the car ferry to Southampton every day. The journey took an hour and I often had a wait for long times in the café beforehand, so it gave me something to do. I drew it simply to keep me entertained on the way to and from work each day.
Sasha was kind enough to describe it as 'stripped back graphic design', 'cos it was all drawn with 3 biros and a pack of highlighters, oh, and a ruler. I can't draw people particularly well, limbs are never really in proportion and most of the time everyone wears the same clothes and stands in the exact same pose. But that's okay – by just drawing the character's heads none of that matters and there's more room for the dialogue. I think it is simple but effective and overall, I think, more jokes work than don't.

<BB<

Aha, I have seen them now. I am enlightened. I can see why the museum wants them.

And I think they're good.

That's very kind of you to say. I've every confidence that soon this cartoon will proudly be in the museum's display department; ie, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.

<BB<