From the category archives:

J.K. Rowling

Just a reminder that the Potter Pundits will be appearing live tonight, March 6, 2010, at Pace University in the NYC area.  For those who can’t make it in person (and I suspect that’s many of us), the good news is that Pottercast will be offering a livestream of the event.  You can find the livestream here.  The event starts at 7PM Eastern Standard Time.  Tune in to hear the Potter Pundits–Travis Prinzi, John Granger, and James Thomas–discuss Harry Potter as great literature!

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Melissa Anelli has posted a new “Vault” entry. These are excerpts from her interviews with J.K. Rowling. Two fascinating items come out of this discussion.

Grindelwald as Lucifer

MA: It reminds me of WICKED, did you ever read WICKED?

JKR: No.

MA: Maguire does retellings of old fairytales and he made a very cerebral book about the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, and how they used to be best friends.

JKR: Oh really

MA: It’s very similar; she went one way to fight injustice and fight the wizard, and Glinda went the other, to be the political figure and play into the system. Really interesting.

JKR: Well, it’s the old fallen angel idea in some ways, isn’t it? It’s God and Lucifer.

MA: I wanted to ask you about that, because Grindelwald resembles – the golden curls, the first person I thought of was Lucifer.

Fascinating. Rowling goes on to call their friendship a “fraternal bond,” and she notes that Dumbledore’s emotional infatuation with Grindelwald makes him “less culpable.” Thoughts?

Then, there’s this bit. Often, when I think Ms. Rowling didn’t think through something well enough, she comes out with something like this to prove me wrong: [click to continue…]

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According to some calculations, when the clock ticks over midnight tonight, a new decade will begin and the old one close.  Not for me, though, I don’t think the new decade starts until 2011.  :)

But since most of the world figures 2010 will start the new decade, I’ve noticed a fair number of stories posted over at The Leaky Cauldron on Harry Potter and its place in the last decade.  That is to say, Harry Potter is making a lot of end of decade lists.  I was going to post the links to some of those stories but Leaky is apparently down for maintainence right now.  Oh well.  Anyway, if you go over there once they’re back up, you’ll see over the last week or so many of these stories.

My question to you all this New Year’s Eve is, what do you think Harry Potter’s role and place was in the last decade?  What do you think it will be in the decade to come?  How do you measure the impact of both Harry Potter and of Joanne Rowling at this time in history?

So, have yourself some hors d’ouevres, raise a toast of champagne, and sing a round of Auld Lang Syne, and have a Happy New Year!!

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Found this article on The Torch Online.  I post it for two reasons:  One, it’s a nice, thoughtful article on a topic we’ve discussed much here regarding adapting books or comics for the big screen, and Two, it mentions specific books/comics we’ve talked about much here, namely The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and the Watchmen.  Plus, our very own Matthew/Korg is mentioned.  See if you can find where! ;)

Feel free to share your thoughts on the article here.  Enjoy!

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Who’s the Hero? Harry or Dumbledore?

by revgeorge 11.28.2009
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On her blog Quoth the Maven, Janet Batchler has some great comments regarding who is the hero of Harry Potter: Harry Potter or Dumbledore.  She’s responding to a story here arguing that Dumbledore is the real hero of the HP series not Harry.  Check out both and see what you think.

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C.S. Lewis and The Doctor

by revgeorge 11.23.2009
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For me, two very important events happened yesterday and today.  Yesterday, November 22, 1963, C.S. Lewis died, his death being overshadowed by the assasination of John F. Kennedy.  Aldous Huxley also died that day too.  Lewis is well known for his Chronicles of Narnia books and also for his Christian apologetical works, even giving a [...]

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J.K. Rowling Comic Preview

by Travis Prinzi 10.23.2009

We reported previously on a forthcoming J.K. Rowling “Female Force” comic. You can now view a preview of that comic at MTV!
MTV reports:
Bluewater has provided Splash Page readers with an exclusive preview of “Female Force: J.K. rowling,” which hits shelves in December in a standard, 23-page comic and a “double-sized collector’s edition.” The comic is [...]

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J.K. Rowling Wins Awards

by Travis Prinzi 10.06.2009
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DQ Entertainment is awarding J.K. Rowling a Lifetime Achievement Award:
The 2009 DQE Lifetime Achievement Award has been awarded to J.K. Rowling for her outstanding contribution towards children entertainment. J.K Rowling is the author and creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series. The esteemed jury were almost unanimous in their choice of J.K. Rowling – who [...]

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