J.K. Rowling paid off DC Comics

[snopes]

Comment: I heard that JK Rowling who wrote "Harry Potter" had to pay Neil
Gaiman/DC comics because Harry Potter is a so close to a character that he
created 5 yrs before.

[Il-Mari]

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: I heard that JK Rowling who wrote "Harry Potter" had to pay Neil
Gaiman/DC comics because Harry Potter is a so close to a character that he
created 5 yrs before.

Neil Gaiman's addressed this a couple of times already.

Here he offers a brief summation:

Linda Richards: There's been a lot of muttering in the UK press about J.K. Rowling "borrowing" ideas for her Harry Potter books from you. Would you care to comment on that?

Neil Gaiman: Last year, initially The Scotsman newspaper -- being Scottish and J.K. Rowling being Scottish -- and because of the English tendency to try and tear down their idols, they kept trying to build stories which said J.K. Rowling ripped off Neil Gaiman. They kept getting in touch with me and I kept declining to play because I thought it was silly. And then The Daily Mirror in England ran an article about that mad woman who was trying to sue J.K. Rowling over having stolen muggles from her. And they finished off with a line saying [something like]: And Neil Gaiman has accused her of stealing.

Luckily I found this online and I found it the night it came out by pure coincidence and the reporter's e-mail address was at the bottom of the thing so I fired off an e-mail saying: This is not true, I never said this. You are making this up. I got an apologetic e-mail back, but by the time I'd gotten the apologetic e-mail back it was already in The Daily Mail the following morning and it was very obvious that The Daily Mail's research [had] consisted of reading The Daily Mirror. And you're going: journalists are so lazy.

LR: What was it of yours they were accusing her of stealing from you?

NG: My character Tim Hunter from Books of Magic who came out in 1990 was a small dark-haired boy with big round spectacles -- a 12-year-old English boy -- who has the potential to be the most powerful wizard in the world and has a little barn owl.

LR: So there were commonalties, for sure.

NG: Well, yes and as I finally, pissed off, pointed out to an English reviewer who tried to start this again, I said: Look, all of the things that they actually have in common are such incredibly obvious, surface things that, had she actually been stealing, they were the things that would be first to be changed. Change hair color from brown to fair, you lose the glasses, you know: that kind of thing.

LR: Change the owl to a gecko.

NG: Yes. Or to a peregrine falcon. And I said to her that I thought we were both just stealing from T.H. White: very straightforward. But then I saw an online interview with the mad muggles lady where they were asking her about me and they said: what about Neil Gaiman? And she said: Well, he's been gotten to. [Laughs]

LR: By the Harry Potter conspiracy? [Laughs]

NG: I guess, yes.

http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/gaiman.html

- Il-Mari

[Blatherskite]

Oh, that Neil Gaiman. Talented and sensible.

How did this pop back up again anyway? I remember it from way back with 'the mad muggles lady' and it predates that.

[gopher]

Originally Posted by Blatherskite

Oh, that Neil Gaiman. Talented and sensible.

How did this pop back up again anyway? I remember it from way back with 'the mad muggles lady' and it predates that.

Maybe with the success of Stardust he is back in the media focus.

Now if he could just get the Death stories on the big screen I would be a happy man, or Neverwhere with the budget it deserves. Oh and keep Keanu Reeves away from both.

[MidgardDragon]

I love this man to death. Coraline is coming to the big screen next, then hopefully after that Neverwhere (it's been picked up). Maybe soon thereafter we can get a Good Omens movie or American Gods mini-series.

[Beejtronic]

This is not true, I never said this. You are making this up.

The Daily Mail? Never!

[Arts Myth]

Originally Posted by Beejtronic

The Daily Mail? Never!

So the big question, of course, is: Which is Neil Gaiman; a cause of cancer, or a cure?

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by Arts Myth

So the big question, of course, is: Which is Neil Gaiman; a cause of cancer, or a cure?

And where was he the night Diana died? (Oh, that would be the Express.) More importantly, though, what will this news do to house prices?

I remember recently seeing a blog article listing the various ways Rowling ripped off Tolkien and CS Lewis. I found the CS Lewis stuff a bit far fetched, but without a bit of back knowledge, some of the Tolkien parrallels could be believable. Dumbledore basically is Gandalf minus the resurrection thing.

The back knowledge is, of course, some years back when Rowling said she had never finished reading any of Tolkien's books. She wouldn't have anything to steal from.

I remember back when Half Blood Prince came out, she'd said a few various things about fantasy in general and certain authors in particular (I remember CS Lewis getting dragged into it somehow) that had a lot of nerds up in arms about things that I, as a nerd, didn't understand.

[Dropbear]

When is someone going to write the story of the average boy who learned that he he was destined to be a pretty average sort of wizard and have a job as a middle range clerk and then get killed in chapter three by the Dark Lord while hiding under his desk.

Dropbear

[Arts Myth]

Originally Posted by Dropbear

When is someone going to write the story of the average boy who learned that he he was destined to be a pretty average sort of wizard and have a job as a middle range clerk and then get killed in chapter three by the Dark Lord while hiding under his desk.

When they figure out what to write in chapter four.

[BamaRainbow]

Originally Posted by Arts Myth

When they figure out what to write in chapter four.

In fairness, they could make it a very long three chapters.

[Elbe]

Tim Hunter did get all chummy with Death at the end of the universe in his first mini-series, let's see Harry Potter do that! But who wouldn't get chummy with a peppy goth girl who's willing to lend a helping hand at the edge of oblivion?

[llewtrah]

The problem is, aren't there some standard forumulae in fantasy anyway? Some of them go back into folklore, pre-dating LOTR, Narnia, Thomas Covenant etc. And some of the themes may even be biblical.

The good/innocent person has powerful artefact that evil person wants theme, the cinderella/ugly duckling/light-hidden-under-a-bushel theme (downtrodden person destined to become powerful magic user, either ignorant of their powers or hiding them at the outset of the story), the David/Goliath theme, the person born in humble circumstances but destined to be king/leader of men theme.

It's all been done before and Rowling is drawing from folklore traditions that predate LOTR etc, probably some of the same ones that Tolkien drew on.

[Twankydillo]

Originally Posted by hevach

I remember recently seeing a blog article listing the various ways Rowling ripped off Tolkien and CS Lewis. I found the CS Lewis stuff a bit far fetched, but without a bit of back knowledge, some of the Tolkien parrallels could be believable. Dumbledore basically is Gandalf minus the resurrection thing.

This is one of the many reasons I tend not to be allowed on Harry Potter forums. I have a huge list of why JK Rowling Is Not Ripping Off Tolkien that somehow doesn't sit well with a handful of Harry Potter fans and webmasters. I remember one moderator conceding that she's 'tipping her hat to Tolkien, then' before closing the thread - before I could argue that she didn't even do that!

(Of course, one of the other reasons I tend not to be allowed on Harry Potter forums is because I insulted the concept of a fanbook one particularly webmaster was trying to plug a few years ago. Big no-no, apparently)

[Blatherskite]

At least Rowling has mentioned T. H. White as an influence, whereas she's never referenced Tolkien. I think there are people who would be shocked, simply shocked if you told them that Tolkien didn't invent, say, elves or magical artefacts or the unlikely hero.

I agree with llewtrah. The Books of Magic presumably adhere to a few fantasy archetypes and folkloric whatdyacallits, too, although I've never read them so perhaps not.

[MidgardDragon]

At least Rowling has mentioned T. H. White as an influence

I find that more believable than Tolkien (besides the fact that she said it) simply because both Dumbledore and Gandalf are pretty obvious "Merlin" figures. That's not the same as ripping something off, though. Half of the "wise" wizards in just about every fantasy universe are Merlin figures.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by Blatherskite

I remember it from way back with 'the mad muggles lady' and it predates that.

Everyone knows Louis Armstrong invented "muggles".

[Beejtronic]

Originally Posted by Twankydillo

This is one of the many reasons I tend not to be allowed on Harry Potter forums. I have a huge list of why JK Rowling Is Not Ripping Off Tolkien that somehow doesn't sit well with a handful of Harry Potter fans and webmasters. I remember one moderator conceding that she's 'tipping her hat to Tolkien, then' before closing the thread - before I could argue that she didn't even do that!

(Of course, one of the other reasons I tend not to be allowed on Harry Potter forums is because I insulted the concept of a fanbook one particularly webmaster was trying to plug a few years ago. Big no-no, apparently)

Yes, but most insane HP fans these days think JK Rowling is a big evil jerk for either A) not putting their beloved ship in the 7th book, B) making a one-off supplemental book and *GASP* only making 7 copies, one of which was auctioned for charity, or C) making Dumbledore gay/ not making him gay soon enough.

Forgetting the fact that she's the whole reason they have a fandom to obsess over, of course.

Originally Posted by Beejtronic

Yes, but most insane HP fans these days think JK Rowling is a big evil jerk for either A) not putting their beloved ship in the 7th book, B) making a one-off supplemental book and *GASP* only making 7 copies, one of which was auctioned for charity, or C) making Dumbledore gay/ not making him gay soon enough.

Forgetting the fact that she's the whole reason they have a fandom to obsess over, of course.

The text of that book was made available for free, what more do they want?

Though the thing about making Dumbledore gay kind of annoyed me. Not that she made him gay, I thought he had a rather unhealthy fixation on both Harry and Snape to begin with, but how she did it. I personally believe the axiom that once the author puts down the pencil, they know nothing more about the book than the reader.

It's a bit unfair to go back after the fact and add to it, when people have built pretty firm views on a character and expect some amount of closure at the end of the series. If she wanted him to be gay, she had over a thousand pages of opportunity and an entire plot arc about his boy love. If you don't want to commit, toss in some accusations with all the other Dumbledore slander being thrown around in the 7th book and one of his usual ambiguous non answers at the end and leave the question open.

It's sort of like Ray Bradbury constantly getting angry when people say Fahrenheit 451 is about censorship because he wanted it to be about consumerism and communication.