On 11-Jun-09, at 5:36 PM, blaqusmith wrote:

> --- In booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com, Kerry Lee <kdlee@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 27-May-09, at 10:45 PM, van45us wrote:
>>
>>> When you come to the home page, there are recent posts. When you
>>> click on "messages," you are taken back to 2007. What's up with
>>> that? ;)
>> Well, the messages on that page are sorted with the newest messages
>> being on the bottom, and the group has been
>> pretty much dead since Life During Wartime ended.  Hopefully we'll
>> see
>> some life in it now that The Unwritten has started up.
>> The majority of activity on it of late has been spam messages(which
>> get deleted as soon as a moderator notices the message).
>> That's why there are gaps in the message numbering as well.
>>
>> Kerry
>>
> show me where to come back and what to do to start something new but
> of familiarality, who knows maybe th esubject is not dead, recently
> completed the entire series and have every issue but one. would be
> nice to talk about it, direct me on where to go or come back

Well, to start something new, just think up a subject, and send an
email to ' booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com '.  That's pretty much it.
Or, you can look through the message archives and reply to any of the
pre-existing threads.  Entirely up to you.  With any luck, you'll stir
up some of the remaining lurkers.

Kerry

--- In booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com, Kerry Lee <kdlee@...> wrote:
>
>
> On 27-May-09, at 10:45 PM, van45us wrote:
>
> > When you come to the home page, there are recent posts. When you
> > click on "messages," you are taken back to 2007. What's up with
> > that? ;)
> Well, the messages on that page are sorted with the newest messages
> being on the bottom, and the group has been
> pretty much dead since Life During Wartime ended.  Hopefully we'll see
> some life in it now that The Unwritten has started up.
> The majority of activity on it of late has been spam messages(which
> get deleted as soon as a moderator notices the message).
> That's why there are gaps in the message numbering as well.
>
> Kerry
>
show me where to come back and what to do to start something new but of
familiarality, who knows maybe th esubject is not dead, recently completed the
entire series and have every issue but one. would be nice to talk about it,
direct me on where to go or come back

> Well, the messages on that page are sorted with the newest messages
> being on the bottom, and the group has been
> pretty much dead since Life During Wartime ended.  Hopefully we'll see
> some life in it now that The Unwritten has started up.
> The majority of activity on it of late has been spam messages(which
> get deleted as soon as a moderator notices the message).
> That's why there are gaps in the message numbering as well.
>
> Kerry
>
Ah, right - I forget Yahoo does the reverse order thing, and with such a wide
gap between posts - makes sense. Yeah, hopefully things will gear up a little
now. Maybe one day they'll make the BOM film and we'll be buried under an
avalanche of postings....;)

On 27-May-09, at 10:45 PM, van45us wrote:

> When you come to the home page, there are recent posts. When you
> click on "messages," you are taken back to 2007. What's up with
> that? ;)
Well, the messages on that page are sorted with the newest messages
being on the bottom, and the group has been
pretty much dead since Life During Wartime ended.  Hopefully we'll see
some life in it now that The Unwritten has started up.
The majority of activity on it of late has been spam messages(which
get deleted as soon as a moderator notices the message).
That's why there are gaps in the message numbering as well.

Kerry

When you come to the home page, there are recent posts. When you click on
"messages," you are taken back to 2007. What's up with that? ;)

--- In booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com, Kerry Lee <kdlee@...> wrote:
>
> Just a heads up that The Unwritten(new series by Mike Carey and Peter
> Gross) will be coming out tomorrow.  If you get it, post your
> impressions, and let's see if we can get some discussion going in the
> group.
>
> Kerry


It seems good, and it's nice seeing Peter's artwork again. It's an odd story
though, and I am not really sure what to make of it yet. More later.

Just a heads up that The Unwritten(new series by Mike Carey and Peter
Gross) will be coming out tomorrow.  If you get it, post your
impressions, and let's see if we can get some discussion going in the
group.

Kerry

Hi to whoever is still on here.

I must admit that for me, a major source of news from the US is The Daily Show,
and its companion The Colbert Report. The Daily Show is shown on Norwegian TV,
but I get The Colbert Report occasionally on the web. I just saw the April 16
show, where Clarence Thomas was quoted as having said that: "I have to admit
that I'm one of those people that still thinks the dishwasher is a miracle. I
like to load it. I like to look in and see how the dishes were magically
cleaned."

Doesn't that sound like someone we know? A certain demon with a fondness for
playing with household appliances? :)

On 8-Feb-09, at 4:24 PM, Ruben Espinosa wrote:

> Don't know if there's anyone left out there besides spammers
I'm still here.  But it's nice to see a message on here that I don't
have to delete/ban the writer(luckily
I havn't gotten to the point where that's an automatic response to
seeing posts here).


> but I
> thought I'd mention I met and spoke with Peter Gross this weekend at
> the New York Comic Con. He seemed well and in good spirits and was out
> promoting is new series with Mike Carey (of Lucifer fame).  It's
> called "The Unwritten" and you can read the release about it here:
>
> http://io9.com/5148624/vertigo-promises-new-graphic-novels-new-series
>
> The character sort of looks like our old Tim (new character is named
> Tom) and it sounds like other parallels exist.  At least it's
> something to look forward to and not another "angry, young adult Tim
> acting tough" series.
I had read about it on Newsarama's NYCC comic con, but it was pretty
much the same
paragraph that's on the page you linked to(although, I don't think it
mentioned when it
would be released).  Made me glad, as I enjoy Carey's stuff, as well
as Gross, and this seemed
interesting and the description immediately made me think of BoM, and
made me sad in that
DC/Vertigo seem determined to keep Tim completely and totally locked
away for the rest
of eternity.  Ah well.  This is on my pull list as soon as I'm in the
comic store on Wednesday.

Thanks for the heads up, and good to see someone else is still out
there.  Now if we can get
a discussion going on here again.

>
> Thanks,
> Ruben
> http://www.collectingfool.com
Kerry

Don't know if there's anyone left out there besides spammers but I
thought I'd mention I met and spoke with Peter Gross this weekend at
the New York Comic Con. He seemed well and in good spirits and was out
promoting is new series with Mike Carey (of Lucifer fame).  It's
called "The Unwritten" and you can read the release about it here:

http://io9.com/5148624/vertigo-promises-new-graphic-novels-new-series

The character sort of looks like our old Tim (new character is named
Tom) and it sounds like other parallels exist.  At least it's
something to look forward to and not another "angry, young adult Tim
acting tough" series.

Also, on a separate note, if there's anyone out there that collects
original comic art and has artwork from BoM or Lucifer, can you drop
me a line?

Thanks,
Ruben
http://www.collectingfool.com

Can anyone help edit
http://www.fanhistory.com/index.php/Books_of_Magic , the Fan History
article about the history of the Books of Magic fandom?  The
information is pretty sparse and could use with some one filling in a
few details.

Thanks,
Laura

Amen!

--- In booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com, Kerry Lee <kdlee@...> wrote:
>
> Just wishing all those still on the list a Happy New Year.  Let's
hope
> that it's a better one for Tim.
>
> Kerry
>

For some reason the reply key isn't bringing up the history anymore,
so I have to copy and paste it. Anyway, yeah, you're old enough to
have read it while it was still in print. Since the trades are still
in print, I assume others are reading them as well. Mainstream fandom
can be subject to trends. If it was still running, or a movie was out,
this forum would no doubt be full of first time readers. And then all
the old timers would be griping about the newbies. ;)

>Excuse me van45us, I am 28!<

The way the post was worded I thought it was someone younger. I like
HP, the only thing annoying about it is that now BOM will probably
never be filmed. Which could be a good thing in the long run....


>I've been on this group for a long time now, maybe 7 or 8 years? I
can't even remember when I read BOM, I was getting the TPB out of the
library when I used to live with my parents and I moved away from them
7 years ago. I'm pretty sure it was over 10 years ago. I think it was
about issue 50 that came out when I started and I was reading Sandman
before that.

And then that bl**dy Harry Potter was created!<

Just wishing all those still on the list a Happy New Year.  Let's hope
that it's a better one for Tim.

Kerry

"I think if I had kept on the series it would have worked better. I
absolutely think that the books that came after never seemed to
connect with the character of Tim."

Amen to that!

Extremely well put, Ibrahim, and I agree completely. I think the
series had some brilliant moments even after Leah departed, but it
wasn't by any means consistent. And Leah wasn't the only character
thrown by the wayside. There were other dangling threads out there.

While I definitely liked the Leah character a lot, to me, the whole
focus of the story was on Molly and her connection with Tim, and
once that disintigrated, it was over. After that, it was one
disasterous reconciliation after another, until I burned out on it
and got to a point where I didn't really care anymore, which is
exactly where John was at, no doubt. Not good if you want to keep
readers. To me, the idea that Tim and Molly had ANY possitive
reconciliation at all was a miracle at that point, so the
card/flowers scene was the payoff, because after that, anything was
possible. What came after was just a let down, even when it was good.

Yes, once the theme is gone or story resolved, the book is probably
over. For my money, Peter was the only one to do good work on it
after John, because he understood the character while others tried
to re-invent him. The school of magic and Walkers storyline was good
from an idea standpoint, but the stories didn't go anywhere, from my
recollection.

Thanks - I didn't know Reiber had worked on Sand Man. Molly's Story
I do have, and the one storyline he did right after BOM, which was
okay, but impressed me to the point of not remembering the title. ;)

Personally, I think having #74 be the end of the series would've been fine,
but a real downer. And I like to see the hero beat the odds. The idea that
Tim being fated to become Mr. Wrong would really make the whole series just
a long march to an obvious conclusion, I think.

As for Rieber -- well, I'm not a mind reader. For me, the place where his
writing on BoM derailed was when Leah disappeared in the desert and Tim made
no effort to find her. There were later rationalizations for this, with the
explanation being that the tattoo was preventing Tim from reaching out to
those he cared for. There was also an 'echo' of Leah, as Peter Gross
rationalized it, who appeared in #50 and expressed her hurt that Tim didn't
look for her.

However, at this point, I think the emotional logic of the series was lost.
It really made no real sense for Tim to just continue on his trip across the
States without moving every grain of sand to find his friend. The decision
for Tim to carry on with his adventures felt arbitrary. And from that point
on, much of Tim's characterization was arbitrary. His lack of awareness
towards Molly, his thowing away his magic, his murdering his doppelganger
with magic peanuts, and assorted actions -- all of that was fairly random,
at least to me. None of it seemed to be natural to Tim's character at all.

Peter Gross said in the lettercolumn that Rieber lost his emotional
connection to Tim at a certain point in the series. All the comments in the
lettercolumn are quite frank about how the tail-end of John's run became a
bit of a wreck. I think it's unfortunate, what happened. Not only did we not
see Rieber take the series to a closing note of his own careful
consideration, we lost Leah, a truly marvellous supporting character for Tim
with whom so much could have been told.

I've really enjoyed John's later work. "Sandman Mystery Theatre: The Sleep
of Reason" is a marvellous piece of writing. I just picked up the trade
today and it absolutely captivated me with its stirring dialogue and the
terrific sense of atmopshere John captures. His work on "The Trenchcoat
Brigade" and "Molly's Story" were equally strong -- the Molly mini-series is
unfairly dismissed for its art; it's a very good story.

I think what happened to BoM, at least from a reader's view, is that the
idea of exploring the insecurities and longings of youth was lost. For
whatever reason. Eventually, Gross restored it, while Rieber did good work
elsewhere.

- Ibrahim Ng

----- Original Message -----
From: "van45us" <mstanley@...>
To: <booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 11:18 PM
Subject: [booksofmagic] Re: Tim/Harry


> Geez, I don't show up for a while (due largely to inaction here) and
> everyone in the world shows up...
>
> Great points, Sascha. Nice article, as well. Aside from the fact
> that I really like the Potter books, it has blown the doors down to
> YA fantasy, a revolution in the making. AND, it has seen the re-
> print of authors who have been out-of-print for a while, Jones being
> a major one. If Rowling had accomplished nothing more than getting
> some of Diana's 40-odd books back on the shelves, then it would have
> been worth the effort!
>
> At the risk of sounding like a parrot, I feel I must add here that
> John (after Neil) created a brilliant story arc, and also killed the
> same arc by allowing the story to get away from him and write
> itself, something every author is prone to do at some time or other.
> Sometimes this takes the tale in strange, wonderful ways one didn't
> expect, sometimes it doesn't. In Tim's case, I still think that John
> should have exerted mroe control and forethought along the way so he
> didn't write himself into a corner. I think many agree, or at least
> they did at the time, that reading the last part of the series was
> like pulling teeth, or watching a train wreck unfold. I nearly
> abandoned the comic on more than one occassion, as you know. Instead
> of saying "no, don't do that, I said "oh, come on now, stop this
> B.S. already!" Maybe Peter is more aware of how things went down
> since he was on the front line with John at the time, but that's how
> I saw it.
>
> Secondly, I never buy into the idea of "fate." I think it's bull. I
> agree 100% with you that to kill off Harry Potter would have been a
> betrayal to the readers, but aside from that, it would have been
> antithetical to what Potter really was, under the ton of mythology
> and magic; a coming of age story. If someone dies after coming of
> age, the trip is wasted if the point was to teach the character
> something to prepare him for the future. I mean, who cares? A waste
> of time. Only if there is a very good reason can this work. I always
> use the example of the film "Brazil," where the entire point of the
> story WAS the ending. Thank God Terry Guilliam fought so hard to
> preserve it.
>
> So, IMHO, fate as applied to BOM, is what the author decides it to
> be. There have been many classic works of literature about someone
> headed down the path to the dark side who change that path and
> perservere. Of course it can go either way, but the idea of "it has
> to do this" is, to me, nonesense. I loved the "happy ending" to BOM.
> To me, that series really ended when Molly opened the letter from
> Tim. After all the pain and darkness, both characters made a
> breakthrough. Personally, it's what I wanted, and it made the whole
> frustrating trip worth the effort. Frustration born of one writer's
> single mindedness in destroying a character. I say this with
> absolute love to John, who is a genius. Is he doing anything now? I
> saw his name on a few things post-BOM, and then he seems to have
> vanished off the face of the earth.
>
> -Mark
>
>
>
> --- In booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com, Sascha Segan
> <wandererstill@...> wrote:
> >
> > Well, it's been a while since I posted here.
> >
> > Let me make an inflammatory comment that I'd love
> > Peter to refute. I found a big difference in the
> > ending of the two stories. And it's that the ending of
> > Harry Potter 7 fits - while the ending of BoM kind of
> > doesn't.
> >
> > Harry Potter is "the boy who lived." That's his
> > mission statement, and the HP books are a classic
> > bildungsroman. Yeah, yeah, we can all say that JK
> > Rowling would have been right edgy to kill Harry at
> > the end. But Rowling *isn't* edgy; the books have
> > darkness in them, but also an undercurrent of an
> > ultimately positive worldview where the good guys can
> > win. To be edgy and kill Harry would have been to
> > betray the series in general.
> >
> > Another way to look at it: It's about, in part,
> > growing up. In more than a little part. And growing up
> > doesn't kill you. It transforms you, and you face
> > things that you think are horrible and deathly, but in
> > general, you survive. And so Harry survives.
> >
> > But here's the thing: the "happy" ending of BoM
> > doesn't feel like a triumph to me, it feels like a
> > cop-out. Because the story wasn't going in that
> > direction, and its themes weren't going in that
> > direction. Rather, oh, was it Peter or John R. who
> > once said, "Tim's tragedy is that given a choice
> > between A and B, he can't see the possibility of C?"
> > The ending of BoM is about Tim seeing C, but it comes
> > without warning or preparation - it's TOO MUCH of a
> > surprise.
> >
> > Now, I always liked Tim and I think you all know I
> > identified with him more than a little all those years
> > ago. And I'm happy for the happy ending. But I wish I
> > could believe it was more than a DC Comics edict to
> > leave the character alive so they could make some
> > sequels. I wish I had seen the character growth that
> > had led to that ending. I almost can't read BoM any
> > more because I find it so profoundly sad - the kind of
> > the story where you keep yelling at the characters,
> > "No! Don't do that!"
> >
> > And that's the difference between Harry and Tim.
> > Harry's story is a wind-up for a triumph. Tim's,
> > through the wonderful last 25 issues, seems to be a
> > wind-up for a tragedy.
> >
> > By the way, Fantasy Authors Don't Resent Potter's
> > Success! Seven years ago! Diana Wynne Jones is right;
> > everybody's drinking from the same well, and it's one
> > that she made soup from before any of the folks we're
> > talking about now.
> >
> > http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=116440&page=1
> >
> > cheers,
> >
> > Sascha
> >
> > --- Peter Gross <peter@...> wrote:
> >
> > > The similarities I saw between the end of BoM and HP
> > > have more to do
> > > with Tim/Barbatos and Harry/Voldemort.
> > >
> > > Tim survives Death/loss of soul by planting a seed
> > > of himself into
> > > Barbatos. He wraps that seed in the memory that he
> > > sells to Barbatos.
> > > Harry survives Death by Voldemort because Voldemort
> > > takes in the
> > > blood or essense of Harry into himself. Therefore
> > > neither Tim or
> > > Harry can be destroyed because their essense is
> > > carried on within the
> > > body of their enemy.
> > >
> > > The themes of self-sacrifice/leaving your friends
> > > behind and going to
> > > face the enemy alone are very similar (but a common
> > > theme). I thought
> > > the scene where Harry "dies" and appears naked in an
> > > empty place was
> > > very similar to what happens to Tim immediately
> > > after he sells his
> > > memory and destroys the other. And in general I
> > > thought the idea of
> > > the horcruxes was very similar to the way that Tim
> > > plants his soul
> > > seed into Barbatos.
> > >
> > > I certainly don't think JK Rowling stole anything
> > > from BoM--but I
> > > find the similarity of themes statling. Maybe it's
> > > just that
> > > exploring the sort of similar character of Tim/Harry
> > > leads you to
> > > similar conclusions. If nothing else I think it
> > > shows that BoM stand
> > > up very well to the Harry Potter books--which is the
> > > point I made to
> > > the powers that be at DC in arguing that now is the
> > > time to get the
> > > rest of BoM collected.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> _____________________________________________________________________
> _______________
> > Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your
> pocket: mail, news, photos & more.
> > http://mobile.yahoo.com/go?refer=1GNXIC
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

--- In booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com, Sascha Segan
<wandererstill@...> wrote:
God, amen to that! Whiney, self-absorbed Trainspotters. The germ of
an interesting idea, but way over the top, and not even good edgy
British writing. ;)

>
> Oh, and let me add, I'm not sure it was worth all of
> those sequels. "Names" and "Age" were relatively
> bland, less than I expected from Dylan Horrocks, who's
> a quietly sensitive chronicler of human relationships.
>
> "Wartime" was an utter cluster of forks. That nearly
> unreadable excrescence of hideous Irvine Welsh
> pastiche was almost like a crazed parody of "hot edgy
> British writing." It was unreadable, it was almost
> impossible to tell who the characters were or what was
> going on, and even more difficult to care about them.
>
>
>
>
_____________________________________________________________________
_______________
> Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your
story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games.
> http://sims.yahoo.com/
>

Geez, I don't show up for a while (due largely to inaction here) and
everyone in the world shows up...

Great points, Sascha. Nice article, as well. Aside from the fact
that I really like the Potter books, it has blown the doors down to
YA fantasy, a revolution in the making. AND, it has seen the re-
print of authors who have been out-of-print for a while, Jones being
a major one. If Rowling had accomplished nothing more than getting
some of Diana's 40-odd books back on the shelves, then it would have
been worth the effort!

At the risk of sounding like a parrot, I feel I must add here that
John (after Neil) created a brilliant story arc, and also killed the
same arc by allowing the story to get away from him and write
itself, something every author is prone to do at some time or other.
Sometimes this takes the tale in strange, wonderful ways one didn't
expect, sometimes it doesn't. In Tim's case, I still think that John
should have exerted mroe control and forethought along the way so he
didn't write himself into a corner. I think many agree, or at least
they did at the time, that reading the last part of the series was
like pulling teeth, or watching a train wreck unfold. I nearly
abandoned the comic on more than one occassion, as you know. Instead
of saying "no, don't do that, I said "oh, come on now, stop this
B.S. already!" Maybe Peter is more aware of how things went down
since he was on the front line with John at the time, but that's how
I saw it.

Secondly, I never buy into the idea of "fate." I think it's bull. I
agree 100% with you that to kill off Harry Potter would have been a
betrayal to the readers, but aside from that, it would have been
antithetical to what Potter really was, under the ton of mythology
and magic; a coming of age story. If someone dies after coming of
age, the trip is wasted if the point was to teach the character
something to prepare him for the future. I mean, who cares? A waste
of time. Only if there is a very good reason can this work. I always
use the example of the film "Brazil," where the entire point of the
story WAS the ending. Thank God Terry Guilliam fought so hard to
preserve it.

So, IMHO, fate as applied to BOM, is what the author decides it to
be. There have been many classic works of literature about someone
headed down the path to the dark side who change that path and
perservere. Of course it can go either way, but the idea of "it has
to do this" is, to me, nonesense. I loved the "happy ending" to BOM.
To me, that series really ended when Molly opened the letter from
Tim. After all the pain and darkness, both characters made a
breakthrough. Personally, it's what I wanted, and it made the whole
frustrating trip worth the effort. Frustration born of one writer's
single mindedness in destroying a character. I say this with
absolute love to John, who is a genius. Is he doing anything now? I
saw his name on a few things post-BOM, and then he seems to have
vanished off the face of the earth.

-Mark



--- In booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com, Sascha Segan
<wandererstill@...> wrote:
>
> Well, it's been a while since I posted here.
>
> Let me make an inflammatory comment that I'd love
> Peter to refute. I found a big difference in the
> ending of the two stories. And it's that the ending of
> Harry Potter 7 fits - while the ending of BoM kind of
> doesn't.
>
> Harry Potter is "the boy who lived." That's his
> mission statement, and the HP books are a classic
> bildungsroman. Yeah, yeah, we can all say that JK
> Rowling would have been right edgy to kill Harry at
> the end. But Rowling *isn't* edgy; the books have
> darkness in them, but also an undercurrent of an
> ultimately positive worldview where the good guys can
> win. To be edgy and kill Harry would have been to
> betray the series in general.
>
> Another way to look at it: It's about, in part,
> growing up. In more than a little part. And growing up
> doesn't kill you. It transforms you, and you face
> things that you think are horrible and deathly, but in
> general, you survive. And so Harry survives.
>
> But here's the thing: the "happy" ending of BoM
> doesn't feel like a triumph to me, it feels like a
> cop-out. Because the story wasn't going in that
> direction, and its themes weren't going in that
> direction. Rather, oh, was it Peter or John R. who
> once said, "Tim's tragedy is that given a choice
> between A and B, he can't see the possibility of C?"
> The ending of BoM is about Tim seeing C, but it comes
> without warning or preparation - it's TOO MUCH of a
> surprise.
>
> Now, I always liked Tim and I think you all know I
> identified with him more than a little all those years
> ago. And I'm happy for the happy ending. But I wish I
> could believe it was more than a DC Comics edict to
> leave the character alive so they could make some
> sequels. I wish I had seen the character growth that
> had led to that ending. I almost can't read BoM any
> more because I find it so profoundly sad - the kind of
> the story where you keep yelling at the characters,
> "No! Don't do that!"
>
> And that's the difference between Harry and Tim.
> Harry's story is a wind-up for a triumph. Tim's,
> through the wonderful last 25 issues, seems to be a
> wind-up for a tragedy.
>
> By the way, Fantasy Authors Don't Resent Potter's
> Success! Seven years ago! Diana Wynne Jones is right;
> everybody's drinking from the same well, and it's one
> that she made soup from before any of the folks we're
> talking about now.
>
> http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=116440&page=1
>
> cheers,
>
> Sascha
>
> --- Peter Gross <peter@...> wrote:
>
> > The similarities I saw between the end of BoM and HP
> > have more to do
> > with Tim/Barbatos and Harry/Voldemort.
> >
> > Tim survives Death/loss of soul by planting a seed
> > of himself into
> > Barbatos. He wraps that seed in the memory that he
> > sells to Barbatos.
> > Harry survives Death by Voldemort because Voldemort
> > takes in the
> > blood or essense of Harry into himself. Therefore
> > neither Tim or
> > Harry can be destroyed because their essense is
> > carried on within the
> > body of their enemy.
> >
> > The themes of self-sacrifice/leaving your friends
> > behind and going to
> > face the enemy alone are very similar (but a common
> > theme). I thought
> > the scene where Harry "dies" and appears naked in an
> > empty place was
> > very similar to what happens to Tim immediately
> > after he sells his
> > memory and destroys the other. And in general I
> > thought the idea of
> > the horcruxes was very similar to the way that Tim
> > plants his soul
> > seed into Barbatos.
> >
> > I certainly don't think JK Rowling stole anything
> > from BoM--but I
> > find the similarity of themes statling. Maybe it's
> > just that
> > exploring the sort of similar character of Tim/Harry
> > leads you to
> > similar conclusions. If nothing else I think it
> > shows that BoM stand
> > up very well to the Harry Potter books--which is the
> > point I made to
> > the powers that be at DC in arguing that now is the
> > time to get the
> > rest of BoM collected.
>
>
>
>
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pocket: mail, news, photos & more.
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>

On 9/6/07, james baillie <blaqusmith@yahoo.com> wrote:

It has always made me question myself when offering a comic to another that they dismiss them as a medium that is simple or  in anyway  less than what an imagination is capable

 

Ah, I understand the frustration -- but many people don't understand the value of art either, or music, or various things.  They can generally be enlightened by exposing them to just the right piece.  When you come upon someone who dismisses comics as a medium, perhaps you could convert that frustration into positivity and give them your copy of Season Of Mists, or Bindings, or The Invisibles Vol.I Bk.1, or something like that.  Maybe a whole new world will open up for them.
 

"I dont want you to read comis books, read a real book"

Wow!  I've never had anyone say anything like that to me... crazy!

I dont read Harry Potter and have only found it a good source of plagourism, which we all know that good art is good plagourism, that which takes a familiar form we already know and then enhances it, I am sure this is done with Her brilliantly imagined storries but (maybe unfortunately) i only see where she gets it from.

 

 

 I certainly don't think the term plagiarism can even remotely be applied to Rowling's work -- even Gaiman and (I believe) Reiber and Gross have all stated that they don't believe Rowling copied Tim with her Harry character (is this the case, Peter?  Oh, and is John here?).  Gaiman, I believe, said it seemed to him that Rowling simply drew on the same basic, mythic archetypes that he had in creating Tim.  Despite the utterly superficial similarities, the two characters are (as Ibrahim eloquently described) deeply and obviously very different.

If you are unable to only see the likenesses, if the superficial similarities between the characters become a barrier that prevents you from being able to appreciate Rowling's work for what it is, then I must ask: how is that any different from the people you describe, for whom the medium prevents them from being able to appreciate the worth and value of "comic books"?

 

Stop talking about Harry when BOM is far superior if only for the fact that when we read these storries we are included within its very design.

 

I'm not sure I'm understanding you here -- are you telling us to stop conversing on our chosen topic?  It sounds like you're somehow claiming the right to "forbid" discussion on Harry Potter simply because you think that Books Of Magic is "far superior" (which is of course a subjective statement).  This seems ridiculous, of course, so I presume that I have misunderstood.  Can you clarify?
 

Glad to see discussion resuming on the list here!   =)


JackTHorn

Oh, and let me add, I'm not sure it was worth all of
those sequels. "Names" and "Age" were relatively
bland, less than I expected from Dylan Horrocks, who's
a quietly sensitive chronicler of human relationships.

"Wartime" was an utter cluster of forks. That nearly
unreadable excrescence of hideous Irvine Welsh
pastiche was almost like a crazed parody of "hot edgy
British writing." It was unreadable, it was almost
impossible to tell who the characters were or what was
going on, and even more difficult to care about them.



________________________________________________________________________________\
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Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play
Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games.
http://sims.yahoo.com/

Well, it's been a while since I posted here.

Let me make an inflammatory comment that I'd love
Peter to refute. I found a big difference in the
ending of the two stories. And it's that the ending of
Harry Potter 7 fits - while the ending of BoM kind of
doesn't.

Harry Potter is "the boy who lived." That's his
mission statement, and the HP books are a classic
bildungsroman. Yeah, yeah, we can all say that JK
Rowling would have been right edgy to kill Harry at
the end. But Rowling *isn't* edgy; the books have
darkness in them, but also an undercurrent of an
ultimately positive worldview where the good guys can
win. To be edgy and kill Harry would have been to
betray the series in general.

Another way to look at it: It's about, in part,
growing up. In more than a little part. And growing up
doesn't kill you. It transforms you, and you face
things that you think are horrible and deathly, but in
general, you survive. And so Harry survives.

But here's the thing: the "happy" ending of BoM
doesn't feel like a triumph to me, it feels like a
cop-out. Because the story wasn't going in that
direction, and its themes weren't going in that
direction. Rather, oh, was it Peter or John R. who
once said, "Tim's tragedy is that given a choice
between A and B, he can't see the possibility of C?"
The ending of BoM is about Tim seeing C, but it comes
without warning or preparation - it's TOO MUCH of a
surprise.

Now, I always liked Tim and I think you all know I
identified with him more than a little all those years
ago. And I'm happy for the happy ending. But I wish I
could believe it was more than a DC Comics edict to
leave the character alive so they could make some
sequels. I wish I had seen the character growth that
had led to that ending. I almost can't read BoM any
more because I find it so profoundly sad - the kind of
the story where you keep yelling at the characters,
"No! Don't do that!"

And that's the difference between Harry and Tim.
Harry's story is a wind-up for a triumph. Tim's,
through the wonderful last 25 issues, seems to be a
wind-up for a tragedy.

By the way, Fantasy Authors Don't Resent Potter's
Success! Seven years ago! Diana Wynne Jones is right;
everybody's drinking from the same well, and it's one
that she made soup from before any of the folks we're
talking about now.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=116440&page=1

cheers,

Sascha

--- Peter Gross <peter@...> wrote:

> The similarities I saw between the end of BoM and HP
> have more to do
> with Tim/Barbatos and Harry/Voldemort.
>
> Tim survives Death/loss of soul by planting a seed
> of himself into
> Barbatos. He wraps that seed in the memory that he
> sells to Barbatos.
> Harry survives Death by Voldemort because Voldemort
> takes in the
> blood or essense of Harry into himself. Therefore
> neither Tim or
> Harry can be destroyed because their essense is
> carried on within the
> body of their enemy.
>
> The themes of self-sacrifice/leaving your friends
> behind and going to
> face the enemy alone are very similar (but a common
> theme). I thought
> the scene where Harry "dies" and appears naked in an
> empty place was
> very similar to what happens to Tim immediately
> after he sells his
> memory and destroys the other. And in general I
> thought the idea of
> the horcruxes was very similar to the way that Tim
> plants his soul
> seed into Barbatos.
>
> I certainly don't think JK Rowling stole anything
> from BoM--but I
> find the similarity of themes statling. Maybe it's
> just that
> exploring the sort of similar character of Tim/Harry
> leads you to
> similar conclusions. If nothing else I think it
> shows that BoM stand
> up very well to the Harry Potter books--which is the
> point I made to
> the powers that be at DC in arguing that now is the
> time to get the
> rest of BoM collected.



________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Take the Internet to Go: Yahoo!Go puts the Internet in your pocket: mail, news,
photos & more.
http://mobile.yahoo.com/go?refer=1GNXIC

Hi Peter,
I'm glad you keep trying. I still haven't been able to read those
last issues, and it's a lingering irritant. I enjoy comics as a
story-telling medium, but don't read many because of the juvenile
short-term way in which they're managed and published. It undermines
the artist's ability to tell a well-planned and executed story, and it
alienates mature readers.
A side-note, I showed BOM to a Harry-Potter-fan friend of mine and
he just didn't get it. Not so much the story as the medium; he didn't
see how you could convey a story in comic as richly as a book. How
exposition and actions occur and are described. How you can convey
that a character saw something they shouldn't without saying it. It
makes me wonder if part of the stigma comics receive is not because
they are too simple a medium, but too complex.
Toby

--- In booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com, Peter Gross <peter@...> wrote:
>
> Hi BoM group,
>
> I just finished the final Harry Potter book on my flight back from
> the San Diego con and I'm really curious if those of you who've read
> it could give me your take on it compared to the end of Books of
> Magic. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it and
> intends to so reply to me directly if you want to.
>
> I've never been one to think Rowling ripped off Tim, and I still
> don't think that--but I think there are some amazingly similar ideas
> floating around in the end of both series and I'd like to see if any
> of you agree...
>
> My hope is I can convince DC that now would be a good time for them
> to finally collect the last 25 issues of BoM.
>
> Best,
> Peter
>

Hi Peter,
   I'm glad you keep trying.  I still haven't been able to read those
last issues, and it's a lingering irritant.  I enjoy comics as a
story-telling medium, but don't read many because of the juvenile
short-term way in which they're managed and published.  It undermines
the artist's ability to tell a well-planned and executed story, and it
alienates mature readers.
   A side-note, I showed BOM to a Harry-Potter-fan friend of mine and
he just didn't get it.  Not so much the story as the medium; he didn't
see how you could convey a story in comic as richly as a book.  How
exposition and actions occur and are described.  How you can convey
that a character saw something they shouldn't without saying it.  It
makes me wonder if part of the stigma comics receive is not because
they are too simple a medium, but too complex.
Toby



--- In booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com, Peter Gross <peter@...> wrote:
>
> Hi BoM group,
>
> I just finished the final Harry Potter book on my flight back from
> the San Diego con and I'm really curious if those of you who've read
> it could give me your take on it compared to the end of Books of
> Magic. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it and
> intends to so reply to me directly if you want to.
>
> I've never been one to think Rowling ripped off Tim, and I still
> don't think that--but I think there are some amazingly similar ideas
> floating around in the end of both series and I'd like to see if any
> of you agree...
>
> My hope is I can convince DC that now would be a good time for them
> to finally collect the last 25 issues of BoM.
>
> Best,
> Peter
>

SPOILER WARNING
RAMBLING WARNING



















I've enjoyed all of the "Harry Potter" series. There are similarities to
Tim -- mostly in that Tim embraces and accepts his destruction, but finds
that in his state of death and defeat, he is able to recover his wits and
power and defeat his enemy in the end. However, I'd point out that it's a
very common plot structure; the hero discovering that his seeming
destruction is actually his salvation.

Personally, I think Peter did a far stronger job with a similar idea. Issue
#74 of the series could've been the last issue of Tim's adventures ever, and
it would've been an excellent ending. The Other defeated, the realms
stablized, and Tim memorialized as having made his sacrifice willingly and
having said good-bye to Molly in a letter. The fact that Tim survives is a
moment of wonderful triumph for #75 and the way the story ends, the sky is
the limit for where Timothy Hunter will go next. (Admittedly, it didn't
quite work out with "Hunter" and "Magick", but still, a good finish.)

Rowling, however, doesn't give us an ending where the possibilities are
endless. She shows Harry in a peaceful, resigned, content state in her
epilogue, and while that's fine for an ending (and I suppose she didn't have
to leave a clean slate for the next author), it doesn't carry the same sense
of joyous wonder and sense of a boundless future that Peter managed to
create.

I'd have to say that Timothy Hunter is a far stronger character than Harry
Potter. Harry Potter is not really that interesting as a person; it's just
that lots of neat stuff happens to him and he's surrounded by fascinating
characters. Rieber established that Tim's uncontrolled magic expressed his
inadequacies and insecurities and that was the perfect way to explore magic
while avoiding the trap of an invincible character. With the world of "Harry
Potter", magic is something of a strict discipline. While this is also a way
of avoiding a character who can never be believably threatened, it makes the
magic less magic, if you will. Harry becomes a viewpoint character while Tim
is a child thrust into an unfamiliar world and struggling to find truth,
meaning and understanding not only in what's around him but what's in
himself. Harry is part of a trio of characters, and probably wouldn't be
much fun to read about without his friends in the mix.

On the other hand, Timothy Hunter is downright appalling as a human being at
times. The Tim of John Ney Rieber's final issues and Peter Gross' initial
stories is a contemptible, infuriatingly self-absorbed and recursive child,
while Harry, despite tantrums, is genuinely a good kid and that generally
shines through. Tim can be impossible to read (and tough to write) while
Harry has mostly been readable and likable.

I guess the primary difference between Tim and Harry for me is that "The
Books Of Magic" as a series is about defining a specific main character.
"Harry Potter" is really about world-building; creating a world of wizardry
and witchcraft that exists alongside our own. Because of that, I've never
really felt the characters are that similar, although they of course are
worth comparing to each other.

- Ibrahim Ng

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nathan Graham" <jackthorn@...>
To: <booksofmagic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: [booksofmagic] Tim/Harry


> Hey, Peter!
>
> Man, I really hope you can convince DC to collect the last issues of BoM.
I
> know of at least five sure purchases who are just waiting for that.
> Ridiculous that they haven't done it already, really.
>
> As for the last HP book, I am reading it a chapter at a time every night
> with my kids, so I'm not nearly done.  I promised I wouldn't read ahead.
So
> my input will have to wait a bit.
>
> Mind your spoilers, everyone...   =)
>
>
> Nathan
>
>
>
> On 7/30/07, Peter Gross wrote:
> >
> >   Hi BoM group,
> >
> > I just finished the final Harry Potter book on my flight back from
> > the San Diego con and I'm really curious if those of you who've read
> > it could give me your take on it compared to the end of Books of
> > Magic. I don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it and
> > intends to so reply to me directly if you want to.
> >
> > I've never been one to think Rowling ripped off Tim, and I still
> > don't think that--but I think there are some amazingly similar ideas
> > floating around in the end of both series and I'd like to see if any
> > of you agree...
> >
> > My hope is I can convince DC that now would be a good time for them
> > to finally collect the last 25 issues of BoM.
> >
> > Best,
> > Peter
> >
> >
> >
> >
>