Snape's goatee? NOOooooooooo!

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 79680

Erin:
> A few months ago, when I first joined this group, my attention was 
drawn to a picture of Professor Snape, drawn by J.K. Rowling, which 
is in the photos section of HP for Grownups.  In it, he has a 
goatee.  This startled me, as never in my wildest dreams had I ever 
pictured a bearded Snape.  He's never described as having one in the 
books, right?> 

Right. I just went to have a quick look, and I don't think it's a 
goatee, just some misleadingly heavy shading which the resolution 
hasn't brought out properly. I know it's tricky, but I think the 
pointy bit you're referring to is the shadow from his collar.
Those are the illustrations she drew for the final book, though, 
which her British publishers refused to use because they thought that 
illustrations would make the books appear to be aimed at younger 
children. (I think this was in the Comic Relief chat, see the Lexicon)

Erin again:
> But then OoP came out, and I couldn't help but notice there was a 
picture, drawn by the American illustrator Mary Grandpre, of Snape in 
it which was too close to the Rowling drawing for comfort.  The 
picture, at the beginning of the chapter "Occlumency", shows Snape as 
about the height of Professor Umbridge, bald on top (I ask you!), and 
with the goatee.  He and Sirius are shown having their little almost-
duel over Snape teaching Harry occlumency. 
<snip> How does Mary Grandpre decide what to draw?  Does 
it get approved at all by JKR before it is included in the book?>  

I've never read the American editions, but I've seen a few of the 
illustrations, and I really don't like the Mary GrandPre drawings at 
all. I don't think she's a particularly talented artist -the US OoP 
cover is awful (there are hundreds of infinitely better realised 
versions of characters on Artistic Alley, and I include many 
character depictions which are nothing like the images I personally 
formed when reading them). I think she employs too much artistic 
licence in her depictions, as your post above bears out. Perhaps 
artistic licence is the wrong sort of phrase - she almost appears to 
be imposing her own ideas over Rowling's, as though attempting to 
have her own, final, influence over the fans. I'm fine with fanfic 
writers putting Draco in Armani, becasue that's a fan reaction, and a 
tribute. It picks up a hint in the text and plays with it, has fun 
with it, celebrates it. But this sort of apparant negation of JKR's 
creation (Ooh, I rhyme), and I think it is a negation, smacks of 
something a little more sinister to me. 

As to whether JKR has any influence, there was an interview with Mary 
GrandPre on the Leaky Cauldron just before OoP came out where she 
mentioned that she'd never had any contact with JKR. JKR has very 
little sway with Scholastic, I think, or she certainly didn't at the 
time PS was released as SS (was that the point when Mary GrandPre was 
brought on board?) as she mentions in the Comic Relief chat that she 
wasn't entirely happy about the name change, but went along with it 
because she was simply grateful that anyone at all was publishing her.
Surely, if they'd consulted her at all about illustrations, she would 
have proffered her own?
JKR *did* have a hand in the appearance of the film, remember. I 
think that Alan Rickman in the films bears an extremely close 
resmblance to the (sans goatee) Snape sketch in the photos section. 

Actually, what I wanted to ask was whether or not fans in the US find 
the pictures influenced their own visualisation of the characters at 
all, or whether they simply find them something of a irritant. I know 
this question occured recently, however, and I think it's a bit 
tricky to keep this sort of thing on topic. If anyone has any 
especially strong views, get in touch off list. I'm particularly 
interested in subjective perceptions at the moment.

Kirstini