Nerd vs Geek vs Being a Girl

I am a bit of a word-nut. I love discovering etymologies and following the historical changes in word usage. I was never one to sit and read the dictionary for fun, but in some ways I'm a little surprised that I never did.

I have other academic texts that I read 'just for fun'.

But the dictionary isn't much help when it comes to this question. According to Google's dictionary, there is some difference, but it is subtle.

Nerd - 1) A foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious 2) An intelligent, single-minded expert in a particular technical discipline or profession.


Geek - 1) an unfashionable or socially inept person 2) person with an eccentric devotion to a particular interest 3) a carnival performer who does particularly wild or disgusting acts.

If you get this reference, I love you all the more.

We can obviously disregard the carnival definition, as it's obviously not the useage most common today. Or else this site would be dedicated to a curvy woman who likes doing odd things to chickens or some such thing.

Both definitions describe someone with a lack of social graces, someone who is not socially desirable, and both have elements of expertise or obsession in a subject (with or without practical application).

In broadening the search to looking into the origins of these words, it also doesn't really clear things up. Geek comes from geck, a Scottish word meaning fool, which some have attributed to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Nerd isn't all that old, popping up in the 50s, and it's not really clear why it started being used. Dr. Seus used the word as a nonsensical in If I Ran the Zoo, and some theorize that kids decided to insult one another with this cool sounding word. Others claim the word knurd (the reverse of drunk) was coined by students describing those of their peers who were a bit too studious.

 I've found myself having a number of conversations with people about the difference between 'nerd' and 'geek'. I'll start out by stressing that the English language has a lot of variation to it - while there are set definitions to words, the way they are used an differentiated varies not only between regions of the world but simply from person to person. 

A collection of what the internet tells us about geeks and nerds:

Venn Diagram from Great White Snark

Geek - Very knowledgeable of a specific topic (electronics, comic books, etc)
Nerd - Very knowledgeable across a wide variety of subjects (book smart)
Dork - socially awkward and not mutually exclusive of nerd/geek. - toomuch at MetaFilter

Geek is a term of admiration, nerd is a term of ambivalence, and dork is a term of derision.  - gyusan at MetaFilter

To me nerd is socially related, and geek is interest related.... I think of geekdom as something you can be obsessed with, something to collect, what do you watch, what do you look up in the internet (which didn't exist during my first experiences in geekdom). To me, a nerd is more of a social position. - Mayim Bialik, (Big Bang Theory, Blossom)

 No nerd calculates so hard, gets such perfect grades, to be called a geek. Likewise, no geek spends 3 weeks putting together the perfect steam punk ensemble to be called a nerd. Too many people use the terms “geek” and “nerd” almost interchangeably. While the key differences between the two may be relatively minor to some, they are critical to those in the know. - WolfGnards.com

How do I weigh in on things? 

For one thing, I think that nerd and geek are far more interchangeable than some word purists want to believe. I actually don't know anyone who self identifies as a geek who would care about being called a nerd, any more than they would care about being called a geek. It would depend on the context in which the word was being used rather than which word was chosen. A geek whose geeky friend laughingly calls them a nerd because they're excited about the way they took out a Legion outpost on the outskirts of New Vegas is probably not going to react differently because of the word choice. Someone who is trying to insult someone by calling them a geek or a nerd probably won't win any points by picking one other the other.

That being said, there are elements of social awkwardness to nerd that I personally don't see applying to geek, just as there are elements of fandom obsession in geek that aren't necessarily in nerd. But it's not like there is a brick wall between the two terms. A male nerd can be a Star Wars geek and not know how to talk to girls without promptly making an awkward ass of himself. A female gaming geek can be a total textbook nerd in an academic subject that interests her (RE: first picture posted in this article).


How does being a girl fit into all of this?

I'll reassure anyone who may feel like any mention of gender differences is an instant warning sign that the writer is about to go into an extreme anti-men rant about how the world would be much better without penises. Far from it. But I think it is interesting to look at how femininity fits into the geek world. 

She has nice boobs, but is that necessary?

 Let's take Kari Byron for example. When she was hired, it was not to be a host in front of the camera. She repeatedly showed up to Jamie's M5 Industries workshops with a desire to get hired by his special effects company. She worked behind the scenes until being put in front of the camera with any regularity, and has said that she found it uncomfortable and difficult to act naturally at first when getting more screen time. Yet she is repeatedly accused of being the token female. 

I feel like I've had challenges constantly while being on "Mythbusters," a lot of backlash like “That's the only reason you're on the show, you're a token girl”, which is absolutely not the case. I worked really hard to get on this show, And I do everything that everyone else on the show does. I laugh at those comments now and I kind of take it as a compliment, like, “Oh, you just said I was pretty. I'll take that.” Because I don't validate anything else that you've said.

 But she's still photographed in a provocatively sexy manner when promoting the show. Is this her fault? No. But it does add fuel to the fire when people think she's only there to be a pretty pair of boobs.


In the same interview, Kari and Mayim talked about the pretty girl nerd:

Bialik: I was on the floor at Comic -Con and there as a gorgeous, five-foot-nine, busty woman in a teeny, tiny Ewok outfit with tattoos and her belly out, and she wore a button that said “I love nerd girls.” And this is my bias, you know, but I thought, “You don't look anything like a nerd girl. You're stunning, you have an awesome stomach, you're wearing an Ewok bikini, you're busty, you're tall.” And I'm thinking, wow, how much the image has changed. She was at least ten years younger than me. And I was thinking, its like the 3rd wave of feminism... 3rd wave is like “I can look however I want, you still have no right to challenge me about my intellect. But it was just so funny because that would never have been my image of a geek...

Byron: I've noticed sort of a backlash against attractive girls that happen to be nerds or gamers, almost constantly challenging the fact that's they're nerds or geeks as if there's no way that's a possibility...

 Female attractiveness is often a source of social division. Traditional beauty adds social value (statistically more likely to get hired for better paying jobs, get services at discounts, etc.) and is many times used to categorize women into the physical haves and have-nots.

What I find interesting and strange is how the geek/nerd community has twisted this hierarchy around somewhat. Lots of geeks want to go to conventions to see the busty cosplaying Slave Leias, but also deny them a level of legitimacy as nerds because of their attractive appearance. On the other hand, a Catwoman whose got a little extra weight on her than the comic book ideal won't be as flocked-to by those snapping pictures, but is taken more seriously if she starts discussing the intricacies of Dungeons and Dragons.

On a personal note, I think that these kinds of hierarchies or fights over who is a 'real' geek do more harm than good. It's similar to a branch of the body acceptance movement that berates the slender body image popularized by the media, saying that "real women" are larger and curvier. Does that make the women who are naturally thin somehow not real? Are you less of a woman because of the size and shape of your body? Who gets to decide what is the "real" body that typifies womanhood, because isn't that the kind of behavior that you're objecting to in the first place?

Crossover Time: MK Edition

When my fiance turned to me this afternoon, he posed this little riddle:

"I know you're not feeling up to it right now, but I want you to guess who the next Mortal Kombat DLC character is. He fits in perfectly with the world of MK and has nine movies to his credit."

Given that I had just gotten home from a job interview on a minimal amount of what may be called sleep, I was not exactly in the mind set required for guessing games. In fact, my brain spent more time trying to come up with the word 'tumbleweeds' to describe my mental capacity than actually attempting a guess.

Then, he gave his final clue: running his fingernails against the side of our CPU. I instantly got it.

Still guessing?

Points for creativity, but no. That's not it.

Check out the Mortal Kombat new DLC trailer (HD) at GameTrailers.com. It's ok. I'll wait.

Holy Slasher, Batman! (Or would that be more like 'Unholy'?) I would have never thought of it, but he's kind of a perfect addition when considering the crossover capabilities of the series. When you can take characters from any universe and move them into Out World, I'm honestly surprised that we haven't seen more franchises making cameos in a long standing series like MK.

Some crossovers are not as successful as others.

Seriously? One hit kill there.

The DC crossover was a bit of a failure in my opinion, partially because DC didn't want any of their heroes killing their opponents. They do know that this is Mortal Kombat, right? It was like they saw Marvel vs Capcom and wanted to jump on board with their own rendition. But while Street Fighter is more about the cool moves and the defeats, MK has always been about the over-the-top brutality and murder. Fatalities are one of the places where the series really shines - so to have characters that don't perform really perform them... it just seems out of place and awkward.

From what I have heard (given that I have MK on XBox, I don't have first hand experience) Kratos was an interesting addition to the series, though he telegraphs his moves too much to be much of a competitor against an opponent who knows their way around the combos.

Even with some not-so-great attempts, I am encouraged by the idea of future franchise crossovers in MK, especially from the horror genre. I think it would breathe some new life into the series - keep things from going stale. Also, I would hope that they use these crossover characters a little better than, say, Soul Calibur, which kind of have their guests show up to the party, but don't try to fit them into the storyline any more than through some slow-as-hell scrolling text. Then again, Soul Calibur isn't exactly story driven, but I appreciate the kind of continuity that the story modes in the latest MK give. Rather than it just being about the fighting, I like that there is a fairly well developed interpersonal and political story behind each of the characters. Some more than others.


Any ideas about who else should make the list?

42: Life and all that other stuff.

Just a short and personal post this time. I promise, I'll get back into analyzing news tidbits or ranting about the culture of gaming soon.

<insert clever segue here> Get it? Segue sounds like Segway. Dammit. Nevermind.

Things are looking up for me, though I'm a little tentative in saying so. I've started putting in a new round of applications and my fiance's position at his new job promises to be very stable. I'm trapped in the Midwestern heat wave at the moment, which is fairly irritating. It means I don't leave the house unless I absolutely have to and we all know what that can lead to.

Working out while the weather is oppressively warm requires and extra level of motivation that I've been trying to muster up. Even in my air conditioned home, the stuffiness and humidity is inescapable.

Also, total non sequitur here: I've been watching a lot of Star Trek: Voyager since it showed up on Netflix. For those of you who don't know, I watched that show religiously since the day it aired. I would be amazed if there was a single episode that I haven't seen, but I know that there are many that I don't remember. Considering that I was in elementary school when the series began, it's understandable that my memory may be a little foggy on the details. Still, watching that show is like chicken soup for my soul. When I'm in a bad mood or when I'm sick, all I really want to do is curl up with some tea and watch Voyager. I like spending some fictional time with Harry Kim, the 'red shirt' who would never die (except that one time) and the Doctor who was probably one of my favorite characters of all time. While I have a lot of love for Next Gen (and I plan on watching all of Deep Space Nine eventually), Voyager is my own personal favorite.

Who can resist Janeway and her Gibson Girl hair?

New Vegas' Fallout

Latest addition to my geeky fan art: my courier from Fallout: New Vegas advertising the determination to get the job done that makes Mojave Express great.

I have mixed feelings around Fallout: New Vegas. This is primarily due to my introduction to the series itself. One day, having no real understanding as to why, I decided to boot up my fiance's copy of Fallout 3. I was instantly hooked. I loved that game to death. I was drawn into the interesting storyline, the compelling characters, the humorous radio broadcasts and the way I could control the pace of the story. I loved that I could be drawn into this personal search for my father but also take as much time as I wanted in simply exploring this new world that was as foreign to my character as it was to me.

As I was playing it, I new that development had started on the next game. Unfortunately, this caused me to really build up my expectations for it. I played Fallout 3 with a slight critical eye, taking notes of the features that I hoped they would improve in the next installment. I was hoping specifically that the animations would improve. It isn't a crucial feature, but I've always found the way Bethesda characters move a little unnerving and it sometimes pulls me out of the story a bit.

New Vegas wasn't a bad game, but I was crushingly disappointed. The story wasn't nearly as compelling as the previous game. For me, taking it out of the context of a personal story, it felt like 'what's the point? Why would my character care who the hell gets this stupid chip thing anyway?' Once I tracked down Benny, the rest of it felt very listless for me.

Also, it was just so buggy. I know the experience varied from player to player, but having the game crash, accidentally walking through parts of the ground that suddenly weren't registering, items I needed to interact with being unclickable; I found these endlessly frustrating, and they significantly lowered my already dwindling enthusiasm for this game.

These problems, though, are not at the core of why I wasn't satisfied with New Vegas in my first play through. Honestly, my expectations did me in. Fallout New Vegas was, in many ways, a repackaging of Fallout 3 but in a setting more familiar to the franchise as a whole. It would have been satisfying if that's all I was expecting. But I didn't think I was getting a game that felt, to me, like a massive mod of the previous one. I thought I was getting the next stage in the game's "evolution," not just it's West coast cousin.

Now that I know what to expect, I'm planning on playing New Vegas through again, now with some new DLC to explore. I suspect my opinion of it will be better this time around. I'll just have to try it out and see. 

Check out each of the images I used in this post over at my DeviantART account. Be sure to leave me a comment if you do!

News Travels Fast v1

Maybe one day I will come up with a better title, but for now News Travels Fast will be my occasional post picking a few bits of news and geekery from the internet that I feel like sharing. Why News Travels Fast? Because I have no delusions that I'm going to be posting these with any particular speed in relation to when the stories broke. I only post 'em as I see 'em.

Talks of a Sequel for X-Men: First Class  
(Source: Screen Rant)

No surprise here, really. The movie was successful, financially speaking, and many critics liked it. As I've said here, I saw problems with it (big ones) but it wasn't a complete load of garbage. Here's hoping they give a little more thought to their thematic structure the next time around.

Or they can just throw a bunch of random mutants in there and call it a day.

LA Noire tech will change the future of Adventure Games 
(Source: Edge)

The old lady in the bowling alley is played by my fiance's godmother. Yeah. That was a weird surprise.

Again, kind of a 'duh' statement, but it's cool to hear Kojima agree with my view of the facial capture used in LA Noire. I really look forward to this kind of tech being implemented in other games. (The idea of Bioware using this in a game similar in style to their current RPGs makes me giddy.)

Are games becoming too easy in order to pander to self confidence?
(Source: The Escapist)

 I love The Escapist for many of their articles like this one. Nathaniel Edwards does an interesting job analyzing how and why difficulty levels in games has been going down. He also compares them to the lack of enthusiasm and willingness to work that his father's middle school students show. I'll give him credit for not saying that video games are the cause of this behavior (after all, these are middle schoolers we're talking about here.) He does make an interesting point about the parallel between game design (aiming to reach the largest audience with an achievable difficulty while giving special challenges and rewards to players who go the extra mile) to American education (not being able to fail a student, so as not to hurt their confidence, and therefore implementing special rewards for those who go above and beyond their peers). While I think it's generally a smart idea for gaming companies to make their games accessible to players of multiple skill levels, I do see it as a large problem to apply the same ideals to how we handle education.

I would point out, though, that a low difficulty does not mean that a game cannot be a rewarding experience and doesn't necessarily sway educational performance to a lower standard. For my own nerdy example: as a child, I loved playing Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego on my old PC. Did I find it challenging? Not in the least.Trust me, there were many games that I outright sucked at. A combination of not a lot of access to a wide variety of games, access to some poorly designed ones, and limited time playing left me believing for years that I was just a shitty gamer. There were many games that I walked away from, frustrated out of my gourd because I couldn't get to the next level no matter how hard I tried or even if I knew the solution. Wishbone, I'm looking at you, you son of a bitch (literally). But Carmen Sandiego gave me a zest for historical knowledge that greatly improved my educational experience in school. My parents were not so lucky when they got me the Math educational tie-in for Sandiego. Yeah. That shit wasn't gonna fly.

In any case, it's an interesting read. Go check it out.

TARDIS arcade, anyone?
(Source: asciimation)

Holy crap. Oh, holy crap. Not only do I love this person, but I also kind of want to rob them.
Someone built a replica TARDIS with a MAME console inside:

Cue the angels' choir, because it is THAT awesome.

Seriously, I want that in my house.

Wouldn't it be cool to have a door hidden behind a TARDIS replica in your house? Like, you'd walk through what looks like a prop piece of furniture into an entirely new room? Just blew my own mind there. I have a thing for hidden passageways.

I scored a 131 point turn in Scrabble on the Xbox the other night.

Now that I've seen it, I need to make one of these for myself.

Okay, so that's not really news. But I certainly felt accomplished. I jumped over the 200 mark while my fiance was still down in the 80s or so. Suffice it to say, he didn't really feel like finishing that round.

And Now for Something Completely Different

My head is running amok with thoughts about a film I just watched. However, as the hour is late and I'm too tired to write more than a rough draft of my thoughts, a review will have to wait. Attempting to write anything of substance right now would seem futile, as it would pale in comparison to the complexity of what is whirling through my head.

So instead, I give you a monkey.

You're probably looking at this thinking sure, it's a nice picture of a monkey. Google can give me hundreds of those on a whim. But this picture is a self portrait. This is the monkey equivalent of a Myspace profile picture.

Photographer David Slater went out into the wilds to take photos of the endangered black crested macaque. The monkeys apparently took quite a liking to him.

Gooble, gobble, gooble, gobble, we accept him, one of us.*

In partying it up with the monkeys, one of them snatched is camera equipment.

‘They were quite mischievous jumping all over my equipment, and it looked like they were already posing for the camera when one hit the button,’ said Slater. ‘The sound got his attention and he kept pressing it. At first, it scared the rest of them away but they soon came back – it was amazing to watch. He must have taken hundreds of pictures by the time I got my camera back but not very many were in focus. He obviously hadn’t worked that out yet.’

A goofy looking grin from a happy monkey playing with a new toy. That's your little ray of sunshine moment for the day.



* Reference too obscure? It's from the film Freaks from 1932.

Horror Movie Horrors: White Noise 2

Oh God.

Where do I even begin?


As you can imagine, I was not going into White Noise 2 expecting it to be a good movie. I remember seeing a booth promo'ing this straight-to-DVD thing back in 2006 at Comic-con. (Man, I need to get my ass back there. It's been too long.) Consider that it's taken me about 3 years to get around to watching it, despite having some very compelling reasons to be interested in it.

Okay, only one reason to be interested in it.

Fillion is good in it. I don't say that as a fan girl apologist. With what he is given, he gives a fairly believable performance. But this film has a horrible premise, followed by a terrible conclusion. It's not quite 'horribafuckus', but it's pretty damn close.

TMNT 3 was my favorite as a child. :(

In fact, many of the performances range from great to at least decent. The actors can't really take blame for the badness of this film. For example, Katee Sackhoff, while given very little to work with, is able to show her character as reasonable, strong and still vulnerable. Though she does suffer from the writers not knowing how to use her properly. For example, I know that it's a common trope to have women be incapable of fighting back while the men folk jump in to throw the punches but watching Starbuck flail about, smacking a guy repeatedly with her purse when he just tried to slit her throat is just ridiculous. Hell, watching any woman respond that way just seems silly.

It's like some weird Firefly/Battlestar Galactica crossover fan fic.

And that's the core problem to this film: the script. It is just simply poorly written. First off: this movie isn't about EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena). At all. It's a sequel to a movie about EVP. It advertises itself as a movie about EVP. Hell, it even has an awkward tie in trying to convince you that this is in fact a movie about EVP. It isn't. It's about near death experiences allowing someone to see when someone was about to die. That concept has nothing at all to do with EVP. This movie should have just embraced that fact and not tried to bend over backwards to make it fit into a franchise that it had nothing to do with. Not that it would have made it a good film. Just potentially better and less awkwardly written from the start. That, and they probably wouldn't have had as many TV-static themed jump scares.

"Bitch, I don't even need electronics. I'm just a spooky granny in an elevator - FEAR ME!"

The movie isn't scary in the least. It's a series of jump scares. Not only that - jump scares with no suspense to lead you into them. I've seen screamers with more skill in crafting their jump scares than this film. (I can still remember when I first encountered kikia... Dammit, Matt. You woke up my whole house with that one.)

A good jump scare (trust me, there are such rarities in existence) occur when the film builds suspense and then plays against the audience's expectations. They direct your attention to under the kid's bed. You know something is going to pop out and scare him as little Timmy leans down, slowly, oh so slowly, his breaths shallow and swift and his heart pounding in his ears. He lifts back the bed skirt and...

Nothing comes out from under the bed. The film plays against your expectation of something scary being under the bed, builds suspense, but doesn't deliver there. They deliver in the creepy jump scare that happens when Timmy decides he's safe and goes for a glass of water, but gets eaten by something in the hallway between his bedroom and the kitchen.

Poor little Timmy.

This film is also generally confused when it comes to back story. Let's break this down as if we were the ones constructing the plot. It has it's central plot device: Dude can see when people are going to die. Dude saves people from dying. Seems like the beginning of a super hero plot. But this is a horror movie. There has to be a negative consequence for it all, right? We can't just have a guy going about and saving people without something bad happening because of it, right? So, we make it so that he's disrupting their fates: these people were supposed to die anyway and in three days of them being saved, they die some horrible death that takes some other people out with them.

So why do they die in three days?

Answer: the Devil.

That's it, really. They try to tie it into this confused twist about how Christ rose on the third day, so the Devil kills people who were supposed to die on the third day... you know what, I'm not going to waste time trying to explain it. The movie certainly doesn't.

The Devil did it. Three days. Yadda yadda. Moving on.

White Noise 2 is a confused mess from beginning to end. Thank goodness I have much better things to watch Fillion and Sackhoff in. I'd imagine most of these actors (even the mediocre ones) are far too good for this movie.

How to make Anansi White?

A man as brilliant as his hair is strange.

In reading a recent interview with Neil Gaiman something interesting popped out at me:

"I don’t like it when black characters become white in movies, or things like that. That was something I found deeply problematic with the attempt by some people who had a lot of money and a lot of clout, and who wanted the rights to Anansi Boys, at one point. Somewhere in there, they made the fatal mistake of saying to me, “And, of course, the characters won’t be black in the movie because black people don’t like fantasy.” They were suddenly very surprised that we were no longer interested in selling them the book."

What in the world? Why on Earth would anyone want to re-cast Anansi Boys as not Black (pressumably White)? How? What? Why?

Spoilers ahead. If you haven't read the book, immediately go to your bookseller of choice and buy it. There's also a very good audiobook recording of it floating around the internet. It is brilliant. One of my favorite books.

Get it. Read it. Love it.

Ok, let's dig into this.

This is a story about Afican gods and the son/sons of one African god in particular - Anansi, the spider. The story is steeped in African mythology and modern African American culture. While it is written by a white Englishman, it gives what feels like a very authentic and respectful nod to the mysticism of African American culture, particularly in the South East.

(Note: There is some debate as to whether or not Anansi is really considered a god or just a character in a number of fables. As the book takes the god perspective, I'm going to refer to him as such.)

Anansi is the spider out of a number of West African folk tales, presented in the book as a trickster god and the keeper of stories. The stories he is in often focus around his sly ways of fooling others for the benefit of himself:

I remember hearing stories of Anansi and others as a child, even though I was fairly culturally separated from their origin. While not incredibly common in the US, these stories are still told widely through West Africa and Jamaica. (If they're common elsewhere, I'd love to know more.)

That's one of the beauties of Anansi Boys. While it is told from the perspective of a modern day African American man who seems to have a bit of a disliking for his past (particularly because of his father's antics), it is deeply rooted in the stories and mythos of the "Old World" as it were.

So how on Earth could you recast the main characters as anything but Black?

Anansi is the father of the main character and his "brother". If you recast these brothers as not black, then would Anansi himself not be African? Were the movie makers intending on making Anansi any race they wanted to because he wasn't human and therefore could take any form? What about the friends and family, whose characterizations are very closely tied to their cultural and racial identities?

And would these movie makers not consider the implications of taking an African god and casting him or his children as not African?

I'm generally in support of color blind casting. For example, having a mix of races representing the gods in Thor was a pleasant surprise for me. While those characters should, in the purest sense of the mythos they are based on, be Nordic, having a mixed-race cast gave it an interesting diversity that didn't bother me in the slightest or take me out of the film.

I loved this guy. Seriously. Awesome casting, as far as I'm concerned.

 There are grey areas in color blind casting, like the issue over the "racist" casting for extras in the Hobbit. I still don't really know where I stand on that one. Did Tolkein specify the skin color of the hobbits? No. But he was writing an alternative mythology for the peoples of Western Europe, particularly England - ethnically, white. And he specified that the people to the South who fought under Sauron were dark skinned. So, is it wrong to cast light skinned people as hobbits? In fitting with how the racial makeup was presented in the Lord of the Rings series, it would make sense to keep them pale. But is it racism?

Pic Barely Related

And if it is racism to cast only white people because of the cultural setting, would it have been racist to cast only Asian actors in the Avatar: The Last Airbender film? After all, that film should be cast as all Asian due to it's cultural inspirations. (Personally, I would have preferred that. However, a shitty film is still a shitty film despite the race of the actors involved.)

That's part of a store-bought Aang costume. Nightmare fuel.

So yes, there are grey areas when it comes to racial casting, and there always will be. But when the race of the characters is so ingrained in who and what they are...

Let's just say, I'm glad someone was dumb enough to tell Gaiman of their casting choices before they got the rights to the book.

PS - Just a note about strange book cover designs:

I found that under the listing for a Japanese copy of Anansi Boys. Um, what? Why is there a chubby white angel on the cover? Does that really describe a book about African folklore that has nothing to do with angels or Judeo-Christian mythology?

All I can say: Oy.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know! As long as we keep things civil, I'm happy to host some debate and discussion.