Frequently Asked Questions

For the curious, here’s a little bit more information about the Companion.
 

Who are you?

My name is John Kearns, and I’m just a big fan of Harry Potter. Rowling used to say that her biggest fans were “obsessives,” and that’s definitely me. I was an editor at the Harry Potter Lexicon for 3 years, until events I couldn’t control sucked the fun out of it for me and I decided to start my own project instead. I started working on this site in November of 2007, and it first went live with five chapters posted in February of 2009.
 

How do you know so much about Harry Potter?

I’ve actually only read the books cover-to-cover a handful of times; more of my knowledge comes from looking up references, having conversations about the books, and just having a knack for making connections. I also once indexed the entirety of the series (back when there were just five books), and I’ve done lots of things like write trivia contests and cross-check encyclopedias to ensure all the necessary entries are included.
 

How did you find all of the artists?

Lots and lots of searching. The first four months I worked on this project, all I did was collect art. My iPhoto library cracked 2,000 Harry Potter images long before anyone but me knew about the site, and all but a handful are canon-based (that is, scenes direct from the books). I’m up to 3,400 now, with permission to use work from over 90 different artists, and still climbing. Incidentally, every drawing on the site was reprinted with the exclusive permission of the artist who created it and cannot be reused without their permission.
 

How do you decide what artwork to include on the HPC?

I spent a long time debating how I would select art for the Companion. Ultimately, I decided that the only way I could create a site with a coherent vision – as well as one that I would truly enjoy working on – would be if the vision were exclusively my own. I don’t pretend to have credentials that qualify me to judge what artwork is ‘good;’ I simply take art that fits what I see when I read the books. This ends up meaning that only a very small percentage of the art I consider – under 10% is my best estimate – ends up on the site.

I realize that my method is entirely subjective. I also realize that some of the artists and pieces I’ve chosen not to include are wonderful (some of my personal favorites actually didn’t make the cut). So I hope nobody thinks I’m judging their work by not including it – I’m merely saying it doesn’t fit the feel of the site I’m trying to create.
 

What about the banner artwork?

The banner artwork changes along with the chapters I’m currently posting. To date I’ve used ten different drawings by ten different artists, which you can see here.

Are you still looking for more art?

Always – if you have some (or know of some), I’d love to see it! I can’t promise I’ll use everything that I’m sent, of course; as I say above, it has to fit my vision of the books (and depending on the scene, I may already have lots of other drawings!). But it can’t hurt to send me an e-mail, right?

While we’re at it, here are a few scenes I’m really desperate to find:

  • “THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED,” in CS8
  • Harry and Ron take Polyjuice and talk to Draco, in CS12
  • Harry and Ron confront Lockhart about the Chamber and take him to the entrance, in CS16
  • The D.A. meets in the Room of Requirement, in OP18
  • Trelawney is publicly sacked, in OP26
  • Dumbledore escapes the Ministry in dramatic fashion, in OP27
  • Harry takes Felix Felicis and gets the memory from Slughorn, in HBP22
  • Tottenham Court Road, in DH9
  • Harry infiltrates the Ministry of Magic, in DH12-DH13
  • Harry and Hermione visit Bathilda Bagshot’s house, in DH17
  • Ollivander and Griphook talk with Harry at Shell Cottage, in DH24
  • The D.A. greets the trio in the Room of Requirement, in DH29

If you find any of these, please send them to me!
 

You quote a lot of direct text from the books. Won’t J.K. Rowling hate you?

I don’t believe so. In terms of copyright I’m not breaking any new ground, as my format was partially inspired by a number of predecessors, including Makani’s Project HBP; Marta T’s website, with her loads of canon art; The Harry Potter Lexicon’s Reader’s Guides, and Tealin Raintree’s Azkaban Project. All have been around for some time, and one has been endorsed by Rowling. My site is also freely available to anyone who wants to read it, which Rowling has said in the past is important to her.

That said, if I ever hear from Rowling or Warner Brothers that part of my site is unsatisfactory to them for any reason, I will of course make immediate adjustments. And I’m certainly not going to be publishing any of it.
 

How do I get in touch with you?

You can leave a comment on any page on the site (I read all of them) or e-mail me at john@hpcompanion.com.


20 Responses to “Frequently Asked Questions”

  1. Very cool site!

    Karen said this on March 14, 2009 at 6:37 pm

  2. Hello, i want to know if you could create a pdf or something to download of these beauty work for reading offline. i apreciate it a lot. Thanks.

    alex cajan said this on August 13, 2009 at 12:47 pm

  3. Hi Alex – thanks for you comment. The short answer to your question is… no, at least not right now. I might look into a way to do this down the road (I’d like to have the pages permanently saved anyway) but I just don’t have time to figure it out right now, I’m afraid. Does anybody else know an easy way to make this happen?

    John Kearns said this on August 13, 2009 at 5:08 pm

  4. Hi. Really enjoy your website and look forward to the rest of the books. Concerning pdf’s, I found a site where you enter the web address of the page you want converted and then you download the converted file. I’ve tried it a few times and it seems to work ok.

    glen said this on August 26, 2009 at 4:11 pm

  5. Sorry, forgot to list the website for pdf conversion!

    http://www.htm2pdf.co.uk

    glen said this on August 26, 2009 at 4:13 pm

  6. Hi glen- that’s great, thanks for the link. I actually looked into PDF’ing pages (a couple of different people asked about it) and even though I can do it easily on my Mac, I decided against it, mainly because the pages aren’t staying the same once they’re posted – I’m constantly editing, adding drawings, etc. – and I decided it would be too much to keep up with. However, this is a great resource for anyone who wants to create a PDF from a page themselves so they can take it with them, and then discard it later. So I appreciate the help!

    John Kearns said this on August 26, 2009 at 4:51 pm

  7. Fantastic site! I made my way here by way of a Pottercast shout-out, and I’m very glad I did. I may or may not be skiving off work as we speak to spend the day here :D (I’ve had a bad week and could use the unadulterated joy that comes from Harry Potter world). Keep it coming! If each chapter page contains 50 illustrations I will view and linger on every one; they are too special not to.
    So glad I found this site,
    Woad_is_me [SlytherClaw]

    woadisme said this on October 23, 2009 at 11:54 am

  8. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LAST TWO BOOKS?

    Wendy said this on November 6, 2009 at 1:00 pm

  9. Wendy, I’m posting the chapters one at a time, and still working on them. I’m about eight chapters into book five at the moment, but I’m posting a new one every 2-3 days. You can view recent updates on this page:
    http://hpcompanion.com/updates

    Or there are several other ways to follow if you want to get the updates yourself, which are listed here:
    http://hpcompanion.com/follow

    Thanks for reading!

    John Kearns said this on November 6, 2009 at 1:41 pm

  10. Thanks. I appreciate it. The art is gorgeous and I love the comments on each chapter. Sorry for the all caps.

    Wendy said this on November 6, 2009 at 2:34 pm

  11. Just have to say that I enjoy this site a lot. You wake thoughts about my favorite book series that I’ve never been thinking before. Amazing job and a great site.
    I’m looking forward to see new posts. :)

    MandaOwl said this on December 29, 2009 at 1:28 am

  12. I’ve read the series twice. The next time, I think I will follow along with the HP Companion. That way, I will definitely remember the points that are most important in each chapter.

    Sheri said this on January 11, 2010 at 10:08 am

  13. I stumbled upon this site when I was just getting into HP for the first time during the past few months. I finished the series on audiobook during my drives to and from work because I don’t really have time to sit down and read. Stephen Fry (who reads the books) is a riot! I love your site and now I finally understand all of the HP hype among my friends. It would be awesome to follow your chapter analyses when I go through HP a second time. There are SO many things I missed! Love the art! Thank you for this wonderful website. I can spend hours here. LOL.

    Chiyou said this on January 14, 2010 at 1:21 pm

  14. Hi John, I thought this might be a good place to ask:
    I very much enjoy reading your about the chapter sections and also cherish all the comments made by the fans. Since I have joined, I have twice gone through all the chapters on this site again to check if there were any comments I hadn’t read yet. Since there are still new fans coming to this site all the time of course there have been new comments. It’s quite a handful to go through all the pages, so I was wondering if there was a way to let us know when and where a new comment was added on, say, the books you’re not currently posting about.

    Kim said this on January 29, 2010 at 11:15 am

  15. Kim – if you look underneath the box where you type comments, there’s a little checkbox along the lines of “Notify me of follow-up comments via email” (I can’t see them when I’m logged in because I’m the author). But if you check that box whenever you leave a comment, you’ll be notified when someone else comments on the same post.

    I know there are other folks who do it because I get stats on the number of people who are subscribed, and also posts on older pages tend to come in bunches, so if it doesn’t work for you you might want to just ask for help in one of the comment forums. :)

    John Kearns said this on January 29, 2010 at 2:04 pm

  16. John, thank you, I hadn’t even looked there. I’ll do that from now on. But I guess that means it won’t work for all the pages up until now, unless I post again.

    Kim said this on January 30, 2010 at 5:37 am

  17. Though I realize that you already have fanart for the dragon challenge in GoF, this piece is superbly awesome. http://bri-chan.deviantart.com/art/the-first-task-44869600 Just thought you might enjoy it.

    Lydia said this on March 23, 2010 at 7:09 pm

  18. John, I absolutely love this site! Is there any way I can get my artwork on here? I’ve emailed one already, but is there another way?

    Jamie said this on April 4, 2010 at 12:16 pm

  19. Hi Jamie! I just sent you an e-mail reply, but for anybody else who’s reading: the best way to contact me is via e-mail, at john@hpcompanion.com. I don’t open e-mail attachments for the sake of my computer, but if you post your art online somewhere, just send me a link. I’d love to see it. I can’t promise I will use it, for all the reasons stated above, but I always love seeing more artwork.

    Thanks!

    John Kearns said this on April 4, 2010 at 8:34 pm

  20. I found this site recently and I want to say that it’s totally awesome!

    Magga said this on April 16, 2010 at 9:21 pm

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