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

I'm really suprised this has been so rarely suggested. (I've only seen one request and it was unsure what to call it). But why isn't there a true hitchhiker smiley. You know what I mean. The logo from the books and the videos: the green reflective orb/planet with no eyes and a big rounded toothy grin with tongue out and hitchhiking thumb.

I'm sure it would be used for a wide range of reasons. For marking references to the book, or for DNA. For when or or just isn't quite right. Who knows what else, but I know it would become one of the most popular smiley's ever.

I'm not sure what the code should be for it though. It could be but that will probably be reserved for the website's logo. seems a bit long. would be handy but should probably be reserved for a shortcut. might make a nice compromise. (I'm trying every thing I can think of in case one becomes active.) Because holding the caps down when typing HHGTTG gets annoying, it could even be , but I think I prefer for short.

Anyway, I know the suggestions have been halted for quite awhile now, but this one just seems like it HAS to be here.

Count Zero Using until he can

The design is copyrighted I believe and the smiley idea list is closed I'm afraid

Oh, Jodan... You're breaking my heart.
If it is copyrighted, there's a lot of folks out there breaking it. If any website should have copyright permission, it should be this one. I knew the smiley list was closed but I really want to .

If what you say is true, then I'm just going to throw a tantrum.



That helped, I feel a *little* better now. (btw, I puffed and cried 42 times... that might open up a smiley vortex and drop us a smiley from somewhere in the vicinity of betelgeuse.)

CZ

Right...

I believe it's owned by the illustrator or the publishing company, but you're right this would be nice.

But once again, the smiley ideas list is closed

It's so sad!

I held off last time but, since this is continuing, I think it is necessary to point out that the logo you want wasn't part of the original release of books and videos anyway (and obviously not on the radio). I don't have a first edition book because I dislike hardback books but I do have the paperback version from the next year's print run. I got the books and videos as they came out. No green orb logo. This must be some recent marketing idea which may mean a lot to youngsters but not to the original fans - hence why people haven't been asking for it. I haven't even seen it at all.

None of this is getting you the smiley you want but should at least explain why it hasn't been suggested much/before.

Well I think we should start a campaign to get it! Who's with me?!

It really wouldn't help

You're very pessemistic.

"I don't have a first edition book because I dislike hardback books but I do have the paperback version from the next year's print run."

If you are talking about The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the first edition was a paperback.

When people first started asking for this smiley, I had no idea what they were talking about either. I had to get someone to give me a link to the book cover.

Who was that comment directed to?

I always wait when books first come out because the first editions are nearly always hardback or paperback made from the hardback run and therefore oversized. I like my books to be nice and neat and easy to hold. If the very first HHGTTG print run was normal size I must just have missed it through not being on a book-buying spree at the right moment.

"When people first started asking for this smiley" - Do you mean this thread or *has* there been a previous request for this? Do you still have the link (must mean an internet copy) to the book cover to put it here, Mina? I didn't see it in Amazon's listings with photos. At the moment I'm guessing it is something like that < ok > smiley in green with no eyes and perhaps the mouth from the drool smiley. Odd that a few people seem so attached to it.

As an aside, I hate the rebranding of things. It happens to perfectly respectable books every time the BBC brings out a new dramatisation and completely ruins them. At least with HH and the green smiley it must have been vaguely the BBC's idea (ie with their permission) whereas all the dead authors/owners had no say in the matter.

F79114?thread=207489

Here you go. Requests pop up from time to time, I found three before I'd gone back far enough to find this one with the links in it.

I don't think that those hardback size paperbacks were being issued way back when HHGTTG came out. The first ones I remember seeing were when I was reading Virginia Andrews back in the 80s. They could have been out earlier though. I refuse to buy them. All the bad bits of hardbacks and paperbacks put together. Mmm, I don't think so...

Thanks Mina but the Amazon links on that thread are broken - which explains why I didn't see any green smileys there when I looked. Mostly Harmless only came out in 1992 so that cover version and the game have to be really very recent designs.

I do remember story paperbacks being relatively easy/normal to get in the 70s with the trend towards hardbacks always being released first arriving more in the 80s as you also noticed. However, before that (60s and earlier) most story books did seem to be hardbacks though. Oddly, text books went the other way, with it becoming easier to get paperback versions at the end of the 80s and in the 90s. So perhaps I want the 70s back, where the default state was paperback for storybooks and just put up with text books being in hardback.

"Mostly Harmless only came out in 1992 so that cover version and the game have to be really very recent designs."

I've got the game somewhere on my old computer, but I would lie if I claimed to know much it. But I *do* know that it's from 1984. The release information is at
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/hitchhikers.html.

Another interesting link in that connection is
http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html

much ABOUT it.

If the green smiley doesn't have eyes, what is it covering up in that picture? NB That was one of the pictures in the links on Mina's old thread too but the other picture there was a different green smiley pose (which might have had closed eyes at a better resolution/size).

That was one of the pictures in the links on Mina's old thread yes, but with more info. As I said, I don't know much about this, but I have a feeling that the first use of the green smiley was on the game. Can anyone tell me whether I'm right or wrong in that?

Btw, I had no problems seeing the pictures at Amazon.

Do you mean the Amazon links from the previous thread or a recent Amazon search? I managed to not look specifically for books but didn't select just computer games which might have been better. I got quite a few hits and none of them had a green smiley. I was using the UK site rather than the US one though - and I do know they have different other stuff so they might have different images too.

It might be worth asking Peta is she remembers - she's way more of a fan than I am.