snap judgments

Okay! Victory dance aside, we’re back! And almost as good as new which is why I’m coming to you, Gentle Reader, with really… a good question.

Where do you read comics? On your lunch break? On the bus or other public transport? Do you buy a ‘Reader’s Copy’ especially for the job? Do you read your comic then slip it into a bag and board and file it away or does it linger about the house for a bit until you remember to put it away? Do you have a box just for banking books until you get enough to read in a block? How do we read these things?

Thinking about it like this, I can kind of understand how the average Joe off the street can find themselves off-kilter when approaching comics and normally just grab the trade; the fact I can think of … what, eight obsessive-compulsive ways to read and/or store comics as opposed to the universally understood book might be what’s going through their heads as well.  After all, these things are going to be worth MONEY some day, right?  Nobody wants to be yet another older customer, longing for yesteryear before their parents threw out their obvious goldmines.

So, how do you the Comic Fan(tm) read your books?  Do you dare eat lunch with them?  Do you save them all into a storyline or just grab and go, turning pages in the car after you leave the shop?

Personally, I’m a lucky daughter-of-a-gun who gets to work around these things on a daily basis.  No, that doesn’t mean I read in the store while at the counter (seriously!  stop looking at me like that!), but that means I can grab a bit of time in the back with some books, take them with me at lunch, borrow them overnight (bringing them back in the morning like the special star employee I am) and generally bring comics with me wherever I go.  I tend to have a couple in the car, one in my bag, a TP at bedside, plenty around the living room and the computer desk, all for quick reference or perusal when whim strikes.

Where are yours read?

Much like hating people but loving gatherings (isn’t it ironic?), I get a kick out of Harry Potter fandom.  Not the books mind you, as I tried to read the first one and it just wasn’t my bag, but the people who are rabid for the world of wizards and muggles.  Without more than my few chapters’ worth of work, I know more about the franchise than honestly I should because of the loyal, creative and sometimes cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs fans.  People who’ve invested time and lightened kids’ imaginations by staging wizarding events and who encourage fandom in their kids by knitting them scarves and making their own wands and whatnot is hands down awesome;  as a die-hard Trekkie since I was wee, the time my parents spent shuffling me to a convention or helping my sew my first classic Romulan uniform are special and certainly encouraged me to be the person I am today.

But then… there are the other fans.

The best spot to watch people dig their own graves is Fandom Wank,  a community of people dedicated to watching people take their hobbies far too seriously and, sad and true, Harry Potter is a common topic.  With the last book released this year, the Fandom Wank folks declared the coming of the ‘Potterdämmerung‘, the fan uprising of all fan uprisings and only recently has this really bloomed.

The reason why I share it here with you kindly people is that apparently, there’s this guy in charge of  annotated resource for the books called ‘The Leaky Cauldron‘.  A fairly popular resource and reorganization of the information in the books, the webauthor decided to publish his site as a book; the problem with this is that JK Rowling had already announced that she was going to do an encyclopedia of sorts (the kind of book the Leaky Cauldron was going to do) and that a lot of the info on the site is taken directly from the books and would be a sort of plagiarism.

Now, when asked by JK Rowling and the WB (since they own the rights to movie stills and/or specific content) not to publish this book or at least show them that the Leaky Cauldron’s work wouldn’t be direct lifting, you’d think that the author would back down, show that he was doing original content and give the people who got him into this business, so to speak, their due.  Not so!  This whole mess is actually going to court and is packed to the brim with angry fans who think that JK ROWLING has completely lost it by telling the Leaky Cauldron guy he shouldn’t publish her work reorganized in alphabetical order.

More theories have come to light with fairly damning evidence that the Leaky Cauldron guy had plans that he would help Rowling with publishing her encyclopedia when the series was over and did seem to be in good favor with the multi-million dollar author, but Rowling didn’t take up his offer, he decided (and spoke loudly at a con) that the fans were taking over.

So remember, folks:  fan entitlement is everywhere.  And sometimes, it can get really nasty.