Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. Cover Rant

✎ Published: 2005-08-25 10:30:30

I recently watched 'Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy' and fondly recalled how I discovered Douglas Adams' work in 1992 after reading a humor-filled column by Rainer Rosshirt. Upon reading the book, I was puzzled by its cover, which bore little resemblance to the story. This discrepancy led me to wonder how such choices were made in book design.

Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy. Cover Rant

I've finally been to the cinema in order to watch Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy on Tuesday. I went (as usual) with Ambro, as we both enjoy watching them non-dubbed in original language (and as it's always fun with him). Good movie, I  liked it. I've read some not-so-good reviews, but I actually really liked it. I'm already looking forward to the DVD (something I hardly have after watching a movie). After I had watched that movie some good memories came back:

I've been a huge Douglas Adams fan since I first read his book entitled 'Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy' back in 1992 when I was about 13 years old. Back then there happened to be a german Computer Game Magazine called 'Play Time' (the name alone was worth buying the magazine ;) ). I bought it every month as I was deep into playing Videogames, but there was another gem in each months release: The reader's letter section. The guy responding to the reader's letters was clearly insane. His name was 'Rainer Rosshirt' (another name justifying buying the mag.) and he had a great sense of humor. In fact his column was so funny that I laughed tears from time to time. Ah, jolly good memories. However, someday one of the readers asked if Rainer would happen to be a fan of 'Douglas Adams' literature as his humor seemed to be pretty close. Rainer answered with yes, explained that he loved that mysterious (to me) Douglas Adams, and I went and ordered 'Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy' on the very same day.
Now, when I ordered that book I knew nothing about it. Nothing about the story, nothing about Douglas Adams. I hadn't heard about it before, and Internet didn't exist at that time (at least where I lived ;) ).
So my expectations were high. So the book arrived, and here comes the whole point
of this post:
I looked at the cover and wondered about it's meaning (and thus about the book). And after I had (with much joy) finished the book, I still wondered about the cover's meaning. The cover had in no way any resemblance with the book. Nada. So, if you've read the book or watched the movie you should know about the story, so compare: Here's a pic of the book I bought in 1992 (note how worn out it is)

Amazing, isn't it :)
I wonder how this cover made it onto the book (warning spoiler time).
Did someone say to the art guy "hey, it's a book about someone with a computer going through space"? In fact the only connection between this cover and the content seems to be space and the computer. However, since the HitchHiker Device in the book is clearly described as something quite different from a computer it's not a real connection.

After I had finished that book I bought the other parts of the series. Some of them had covers which were even worse; one of them has a cover which is clearly stolen from Issac Assimovs Robot Universe (Positron-Brain stuff). I'll post those covers later on

How could those things happen? Ideas?