Don't people read anymore?

Søren Krarup Olesen sko at inducks.org
Tue Apr 20 18:56:13 CEST 2010


Dear Daniël,

On 2010-04-19 12:31, D.M. van Eijmeren wrote:
> Question about the discussion on bad sales of Disney comics in the USA:
> If people don't read anymore, why are Joanne Rowling's very thick books
> about Harry Potter so popular amongst today's children? The thickness of
> those books even scares me away, an old man of 36 years. :-P
> The total Potter-story must be over thousands of pages long. And the kids
> love to read it! How come?

The answer is simple: Because they, the stories, describe a fantasy
universe into which kids (optionally older childish people like you and
myself) can project themselves and thus forget about the trivial dayly
life for a moment.

That concept or whatever we choose to call it is very different from our
classy Mickey and Donald plus e.g. Tintin, Asterix and many more. These
are more like observing a story from distance. Obviously most of the
situations and scenes can be considered similar to daily life and most
readers have their own favourite and can associate with the specific
character, but only to a certain remote degree.

Harry Potter (just to follow your example) may even *attract* people,
girls mostly but also boys who might like to get e.g. similar glasses to
look intellectual or whatever. I doubt Donald ever "attracted" people
and readers in the same manner.

All the above are simple guesses. I have no idea on how it really works.
Just a few thoughts... :-)

Søren


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