Okay, I'm not even going to get into whether this was "legally" rape or not, but count me among those who think this woman's story is pretty strange. She couldn't tell that it wasn't her boyfriend she was having sex with? That must have been the least intimate sex ever...like the kind where you don't touch at all. Even if the guy never said a word (which that in itself should have been a sign to her-didn't she think it was weird when he didn't answer her?) and had the exact same body type as his brother, there are still other ways to tell someone you are intimate with in the dark...scent, hair-both body and on the head--, scars, skin texture, body movement, breathing patterns, sexual routines, and others. Honestly, I'm thinking that either the woman must have been drunk, under the influence of some drug, or more asleep than awake, or she doesn't have much of a relationship with Duane.

And yeah, excuse me if I sound horrid and unsympathetic, but as a woman, it drives me nuts when discussions of rape issues make women sound both completely helpless and completely stupid. At least give us some credit!

What's up with all the hating on graphic novels?...(and yes, I am referring to them as graphic novels.)

I thought it was pretty well established that the genre has reached new heights of depth and sophistication, and it's achieved the respect and acclaim of many critics and scholars. After all, Time magazine declared Alan Moore's Watchmen as one of the 100 greatest books of the twentieth century. I haven't heard anyone deny that it's a masterpiece.

(By the way, this isn't a defense of the movie Fantanstic Four. I pretty much hated it.)

I just wrote a long letter that I lost. Crap!

Well to sum up...

A.) I've nearly got at M.A. in English/Literature and I plan to become an English teacher. Reading is my passion. I can't stand it when people turn it into a petty game of name-dropping, a 'look I'm better than you because I've read so and so'! nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!!!

B.) To that dude who's always on here bashing comic books: War and Peace is an easy read (except for those pages and pages of philosophical gibberish.) It reads like a Russian soap opera. If you really wanted to sound superior to everyone else you should have mentioned James Joyce or Virginia Woolf. The modernists really did write some tricky shit!

And yes, my psuedonym is a reference to Neil Gaiman, who is one of my idols.

Okay, I'm confused. Why is Chriss Angel described as a "magician" in quotation marks, which implies that the author thinks he's not, (I mean, isn't that actually what he does for a living?), when Brit is referred to as a young musician, no quotation marks, apparently without a trace of irony? Angel may be "super-skeevy"--I haven't a clue, and I couldn't care less--but I'm pretty sure he actually does perform magic tricks as a career. Poor batshit crazy Britney on the other hand is not, never has been, and never will be a musician. She was a puppet. Now she's just a pathetic has-been.

Re: LisaMc

I don't doubt that having a baby is a fundamentally rich and rewarding experience. I hope to do so myself in the future, if I'm able. But I don't think that it is the answer to all of life's problems, and, frankly, I don't think that having doubts about your life experiences and wondering about the meaning of it all is nothing more than "whining." Questioning your life is not a bad thing. It's just part of what makes us human beings with functioniong brains that consistently question our surroundings. Earlier posters have said this better than me, but, hey, worrying about your life's meaning is quite normal.

Also, I'm sure that you didn't intend for it to sound this way, but instructing people to simply "have a baby" sounds a bit flippant and could be considered hurtful to those who lack the biological capability to have children and the facilities/resources to adopt.

Actually she does own the character, doesn't she? I would assume so, since HP is her creative property.

At the same time though I cannot see how a reference guide to her works, even in bookform, would be theft. It sounds more like it would be a helpful source for scholarly and educational research. This guy is not claiming that he created the characters, allusions, etc, but rather that he is trying to put them in an organized, easily accessible fashion.

It bothers me that Rowling is so bothered by this.