Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – READ, DAMN YOU!

Please, God, read.

by Alan O'Rourke

In which Kevin pulls you kicking and screaming into the world of books.

I have commandeered this comic book blog and am holding it hostage in the name of books. Sweet books! Glorious books! As much as I love sequential art, with its heroes super and classes deadly, the printed word is good for the soul. I am enriching your souls. Let me better your life, dammit!

We’re kicking off this ball game with a real underhand pitch. Bush League stuff. On this tee I have placed a copy of The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, one which you are going to read after swinging and missing twice, the third taking the whole tee with you, you PETULENT CHILD. Five incredible novels (and one short story) rolled into one. It’s actually the perfect book. They did it. We need make no more. I actually lobbied for the printing of books to cease in 1992 after the release of Mostly Harmless. Came right out the womb with a petition. No dice.

You might know the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from the word “42!” being relentlessly screamed at you by performative nerds, who just must let everyone know how much of a nerd they are. The sad thing is sometimes those nerds are right. Really hate to give it to them, but Douglas Adams’ revelatory sci-fi/comedy series is as good as it has ever been. Still as sharp, just as crisp and surprising.

It’s the story of Arthur Dent, incredibly boring Earthman, who, by virtue of being friends with an extraterrestrial, is plucked from the Earth just before it’s destroyed by some otherwordly bureaucrats to make way for a hyperspace bypass. With the help of a two-headed galactic president, a manically depressed robot, and an Infinite Improbability Drive that can and will take us anywhere, Dent is in for a ride that is as terrible to undergo as it is a joy to read.

Adams constantly wraps us in effortlessly funny logic puzzles and philosophical musings. There are an incalculable number of pieces from the Hitchhiker’s Guide that have permanently entered the cultural lexicon.

“Always know where your towel is,” I say to my girlfriend on the regular. I even have the book’s “Don’t Panic” refrain tattooed on my arm because I am INSUFFERABLE.
About Kevin Lanigan 138 Articles
Kevin Lanigan is a writer/comedian/director living in NYC. He's the writer/star of the romantic comedy web series Doomed To You, the improv/sketch show The Puffin Publishing Podcast, and the comedy RPG show JAN: Jive Action Nerds. You can see him perform weekly with his improv team Gone Girl.

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