You know..

[Kendrakirai]

There's just something...WHOLESOME about Jackie with big glasses reading a book to a totally entranced Gin, complete with gestures.

[ZOMBIE USER 1159]

That sketch is about as good as a full fledged strip.
Not only do I like the Potter books, I had similar 'problems' while reading them.
The sketch though, just screams life. Jackie looks like she could stride off the page! Gin is utterly spellbound. What do you say about finishing that sketch off and posting it BJ?
Glad you liked the book, I wonder what Joey'd say about it? Hell I wonder what everybody here thought about it.

[Joshnickerson]

Since I read all four, you'll have to be more specific about which one
But, yeah, I liked all of 'em.

[BJ]

Thanks guys. I hit the chapter about the third Challenge and put the book down, drew the first panel of the strip, then picked the book right back up and finished it that night. Then I picked up the strip, looked at the clock, and drew the sketch instead.

Jackie has read out loud before....

I've been recommending the Harry Potter books to everybody I can. I've only run into one person who felt so-so about them, but everybody else is either intrigued (because they haven't read them yet) or obsessive (because they have). There are a few glitches (Rowling has a thing for huuuuge chunks of exposition, as well as for bad guys who explain their entire plan to the good guy at the end; there are also a number of overheard conversations--all of which keep the plot moving almost recklessly fast, which suits me fine), but overall the books are an enthralling read, and very very twisty.

Joey finished this one before I did, though I bear the dubious honour of having lost sleep on each of the four books. It's like Windows Solitaire--it's so quick and easy that you keep telling yourself "One more chapter, just one...", but it's juicy enough and one chapter covers so much new ground that you can't wait to see what happens next. Awesome!

[Hbomb]

There's this one guy in my Managing Information Resources class who nicknamed me "Harry Potter". I'm not exactly sure why.

Oh, and BJ, if you needed a strip to show, you have that guest strip I sent you a few weeks back.

-H

[BJ]

????

*goes to check email*

[Ahayweh]

I've only run into one person who felt so-so about them,

Well, you've now run into two. They were perfectly fine books, I just didn't like them very much. 'Course, I've only read the first three and a year or two ago at that. I should really reread them and see if my opinion's changed, but I'll probably never get around to it.

[DocMan]

There's this one guy in my Managing Information Resources class who nicknamed me "Harry Potter". I'm not exactly sure why.

I went to a Yule party last December, just after the Harry Potter movie was released. This one kid comes up to me, looks up and says "Hagrid". So I look down at him and says, "Oy, young feller, ye better be about yer own business or ye'll find yerself in a world 'o trouble."

He went.

Doc

[Appendix Q]

Does this mean I'm the only person on Earth who hates Harry Potter? *is turned into a frog* Apparently so...

[Dennis K]

I have the first movie on DVD. Never have read the books yet. I remember the day Book 4 came out where I work. All we could think was "an 800 page CHILDREN'S book"?!?!

[BJ]

With the amount of blood, death, trechery and disturbing imagery in the fourth book, I'd say it's not for kids. Joey wants to call it "Harry Potter and the Big Pile of Skulls". You gotta like any book where the main character sees a friend of his get killed before he's bound to a gravestone and forced to watch a guy cut off his own arm. And that's just one chapter...

[ZOMBIE USER 1159]

Appendix Q, why do you dislike the Harry Potter books?
There being such a general consensus on them, I'm curious as to your objective opinion.

[Appendix Q]

It just seems so utterly stupid to me. When I first heard about it, my initial reaction was "What the hell?" In fact, that's still my reaction to it. And from what a classmate told me (to which I unwillingly listened, for some reason that still escapes me), I'm wondering how these people get off marketing this stuff as children's books. And another thing: it's about a miserable kid who discovers he has magic powers. Oh, that's creative!

[Kendrakirai]

Personally, I've yet to read the books or watch the movie. I don't like to jump onto bandwagons.

The more hype something has, the more distrustful I am of it. And with all the hype of Harry Potter, right now, I trust it about as much as I trust a guy with slicked back hair, a brooklyn accent, and a nose that looks like it's been broken thirty times who's trying to sell me oceanside property in Nevada.


Also, I saw the trailer for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when I was at the powerpuff movie yesterday. That 'house elf' looks like a mutated Chihuahua...complete with huge bulging eyes, pointy-out ears, and terminal case of shivering. Bleah.


I'd rather have my nose hairs plucked one by one.

[DocMan]

I have the first movie on DVD. Never have read the books yet. I remember the day Book 4 came out where I work. All we could think was "an 800 page CHILDREN'S book"?!?!

I'd say Jackie has it right. Harry Potter isn't a Childrens book. It's a Book for Adults to Read to Children. Most of your typical "Fairy Tales" fit into this category. Look at "Peter Pan and Wendy" or "The Chronicles of Narnia". These aren't books that children should discover on their own, but they were written to entertain children.

As for the House Elf... sounds like the movie version is exactly as the books described him. He's not a cute little fairy creature, he's a member of an oppressed class of servant.

I only read the Harry Potter books because my wife had bought them and I was running out of reading material around the house. I'm not one for jumping on bandwagons either, and the Harry Potter hype really put me off. But once I started reading them, I found them well written and entertaining. YMMV.

Doc

[BJ]

The reason Joey and I started into the HP books was to research Mr Potter for a parody version of him in Tonja Steele named "Henry Porter". Henry was going to be the whiny, sickly, annoying kid you had in class. You know the one. He had no friends.

I found a copy of book 1 at a second hand store for two bucks. I brought it home, started reading it, and was impressed at how well written it is, how strong and amusing the narrative voice is and how likeable and well-defined the characters are. That's a lot of "and"s for one sentence, but it's hard to explain. There's a lot of story packed into each book, and they go by quickly. I also love how dark they are--and that they don't EVER talk down to kids. I know a few adults who would have a tough time with some of the terms and ideas.

But yeah. The hype put us off big time, and the main reason for thinking up Henry was to retaliate against the hype. Unfortunately, we liked the series. That doesn't mean you'll never meet Henry, though, and when you do, you can trust he's been heavily researched.

[ZOMBIE USER 195]

And, Harry gives me tons of new material for another parody idea...

Anyway, I really liked 'em. It may be 'cuz I'm a product of the "entertain me and be done with it" school, but I really liked the way the books are written. She doesn't spend an entire chapter or two telling us how, say, Hogwarts Castle looked. It's fast paced and holds your interest, not like the sprawling Pink Floydian "classics" most of us were forced to read in high school and college (Moby Dick comes to mind).

She does get pretty exposition-heavy, though, especially at the end when the bad guy gets their due (in every book). Maybe if Harry Potter dries out, she could make a decent living working for Marvel Comics...



Joey, who wants to know why Harry keeps purposely finding danger all the time in every book..? It's no wonder his glasses are always busted.

[Bo Lindbergh]

Joey, who wants to know why Harry keeps purposely finding danger all the time in every book..?

It's a side effect of those powers he accidentally borrowed from Voldemort.

[Kendrakirai]

No, I think it's just 'cause he's a moron. Besides, you don't wanna read about Harry's boring little life going to school, getting beat up by upperclassmen, and going out on his first date


Tho I wouldn't mind seeing that girl with the giant three headed dog going at it like greased-up monkeys on viagra and speed...

Kitty is pervert.

[Schol-R-LEA]

In my own experience, one of the odd qualities of the HP books is that it is precisely those who immediately despised them on hearing about them are those who turn out to love them most if they actually go ahead and read them. This was certainly my own experience. While I didn't hate them (I knew nothing about them), I certainly went out of my way to avoid them, until I was finally convinced to read the first one as a favor for a friend. I loved it immediately, and was surprised by how fast I went through first one, then the whole series of books to date. I'm not sure I can explain why this would be, but I have some ideas.

I think that what it comes from is that none of what Rowlings is doing is new; but her writing is so engaging and endearing that the surface lack of originality isn't important. To put it another way, you have to keep in mind that the stalest of cliches would never have become cliches if they weren't good to begin with, and someone had used them in a powerfully effective manner at least once. There could never have been an ID4 if there weren't a War of the Worlds, for example. The fact that the later version stank is no reflection on the original. Conversely, when it has been done right once, it can be done right again. Both West Side Story and The Magnificent Seven were excellent reworkings of earlier pieces, so much so that they came to be respected on their own merits, not just as rehashes of (respectively) Romeo and Juliet and The Seven Samurai. What matters isn't the originality of the plot (or lack thereof) so much as the life that the writer breathes into it. A great writer can reinvigorate the most ancient of stories, while a lousy one couldn't make even the most original of ideas fly.

Also, it is quite easy to fall into the trap of assuming that because it is popular, it must be lowest common denominator trash; after all, that's what experience generally tells us. However, I've found these books to be an exception to that rule; they are written in an almost insidiously intelligent manner, remaining accessible even when talking way over the audience's heads. Her real gift is of making fairly erudite concepts understandable, and it makes me wonder if she'd be interested in a line of math and science textbooks...

Rowlings' writing isn't world class, to be sure; it's not meant to be. She wrote the stories for her own children, not for adult critics. Still, the series is simply fun, and treats the reader as an intelligent fellow human being, not as some imbecile to lead around by the nose. In this, she is a much more 'mature' writer than many of those writing 'serious' works.

OTOH, that doesn't mean HP is not open to parody... in fact, I'd say that the success, both as writing and in the popular market, is all the more reason to parody it. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but parody is the dearest.