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Douglas Adams and the Multichannel Future!

The new science fiction magazine Darker Matter is using a forgotten interview with Douglas Adams as the source material for a new three-part series with the creator of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. If you're a fan of Adams, it's well worth taking a read.

There are lots of words of wisdom to be had here, but I was very interested in how the article draws out the idea that Adams was ahead of his time, operating in multiple formats on multiple platforms. Hitchhiker started off as a radio show, and quickly became a record, a book, and a television show. Adams described how each medium had different traits.

Moving from radio to television, you can take most of the words with you. When you move on to the big screen, you have to start leaving some of the words behind and filling the gap visually, because film is primarily a visual medium. It becomes a different thing. I wasn't certain that could be done until I saw the stage show.


That quote is from the second part of the series. The links in this article are to the first. I came across this through TVSquad.

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