No: HPFGUIDX 15605
The Washington Post had an article the other day on Nancy Stouffer,
the woman we love to hate It was not very favorable to her; in
fact, it made it sound like the opportunistic idiot she is. The
article is at:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62378-2001Mar26.html>
Here are some of the more interesting parts of the article, along
with my invaluable commentary (prefaced by my initials, JMC, so that
you don't mix up my comments with the Post's, just in case Stouffer
is watching, we don't want to give her any more ammunition):
<To shut Stouffer up, Rowling and her corporate protectors --
Scholastic Books and Time Warner -- have filed suit against her in
New York...It's a preemptive strike: The corporations don't want
Stouffer bad-mouthing the beloved wizard of Hogwarts ... And they
don't want to be sued by Stouffer for trademark infringement
somewhere down the line.
<But Stouffer, 50, is not the type to go quietly. She is staging a
media McFlurry on TV talk shows, stating her case and publicizing the
reissue of some of her books.
<There are vast differences between the two sets of
books.....Stouffer's are 24-page activity books -- homespun amalgams
of stories, pencil games and pictures to color.
JMC: CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS IDIOT! She is claiming JKR based Harry
Potter on some stupid COLORING BOOKS!
<There are parallels. In Stouffer's stories, for example, Muggles are
mutated humanlike creatures left behind on Earth after a nuclear
holocaust. In Rowling's books, Muggles are ordinary humans.
Stouffer's books are set in a mythical place; so are Rowling's.
Rowling writes of a sorcerer's stone; Stouffer of worry stones. The
jacket illustration of "Legend of Rah" resembles Mary Grandpre's
familiar renderings of Harry Potter.
JMC: Sounds pretty thin to me. And to say those ugly wee-wee head
drawings look like Mary Grandpre's artwork is really pushing it.
<Some of the similarities are remarkable; many are inconsequential.
In Stouffer's stories, for example, a character knocks three times on
a wooden door; in Rowling's, a character knocks three times on an oak
door. Both authors write of a castle on a mirrored lake.
JMC: Next thing you know she'll be trying to trademark the number
three.
<The whole mess "is hard for me to believe," says Stouffer at her
home in Camp Hill, Pa.
JMC: It's hard for us to believe, too, Nancy.
<The folks at Scholastic can't believe the whole mess either. They
are amazed that anyone is taking Stouffer seriously. To imply that
Rowling "may have stolen some things from Stouffer is offensive,"
sighs Scholastic's exasperated-sounding general counsel, Charles
Deull. Such accusations by Stouffer, Deull says, "are based on a
series of statements that are just not true."
<During the mid-1980s, Stouffer created several series of activity
books, to be sold monthly to teachers and to the rest of the reading
public in drugstores and grocery stores. All in all, some 130 books
were planned, Stouffer says. Some were printed, some weren't. The
price was around $4. Scholastic executives have doubts about the
extent to which "Legend of Rah" was ever available. "Check Books in
Print," Deull says. "We've tried every rare-book store and Web site."
They couldn't find a used copy for sale. Deull has seen a photocopy
of the book.
JMC: Notice that Stouffer claims only that "Legend of Rah" was
printed. She never actually says that her "Larry Potter" books were
ever made available, leading me to believe that she invented them
sometime in the last few years.
JMC: This is the best part:
<In the late 1980s, Stouffer says the books were selling so well and
licensing agreements were flooding in at such a rate that she
projected annual earnings of an astonishing $1 billion. She says that
during one 2 1/2-week period her company received orders for $6.5
million, which could have made publishing history. However, even with
these orders in hand her company fell apart, she says. She has no
records of these gigantic sales because the studio at her home
collapsed during a snowstorm in 1996, explains Kevin Casey, a
Philadelphia lawyer who is representing her.
JMC: Convenient, that snowstorm!!!! Who does she think will believe
that? Is there no limit to her arrogance?
<In the 1980s, Stouffer says, she attended book and trade shows
throughout the country, sometimes setting up shop right next to
Scholastic "with my six-foot-tall cutouts of Muggles."
<"That wouldn't make a bit of difference," (Scholastic's lawyer)
Deull says of the trade shows, "because Jo Rowling had no contact
with us. Scholastic and Time Warner did not create Harry Potter."
JMC: This is another interesting claim by Stouffer:
<Scholastic editor Arthur A. Levine brought Rowling's books to
America. Stouffer maintains that at one point she met Levine and
Levine's wife, who expressed interest in Stouffer's Muggles...as it
turns out, Levine does not have a wife and has never been married,
Deull says.
JMC: I bet the folks at Scholastic were pretty amused by her claim
about Arthur's wife.
<Stouffer says Rowling's fame is creating the chaos. ... The word
"muggles," she says, comes from her son's baby-talk word for cheeks
-- muggles. Rowling says her Muggles came from a British word for
fool....Actually, the word is older than both writers. The Oxford
English Dictionary traces muggles back to the 13th century.....
JMC: And, the truest remark:
<Many J.K. Rowling admirers think Nancy Stouffer is capitalizing on
confusion.
<She has begun signing her books N.K. Stouffer -- her middle name,
like Rowling's, is Kathleen. Some Potterheads, Stouffer says, have
even threatened her life.
JMC: Oh, please, like we would bother. And don't call us Potterheads.
^
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/ \ Joywitch M. Curmudgeon
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"How come the Muggles don't hear the bus?" said Harry.
"Them!" said Stan contemptuously. "Don't listen properly, do
they? Don't look properly either. Never notice nuffink, they don'."
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