I was in the lucky position to be taught literature (German literature that is, as I'm from Germany) by a teacher who understood that stylistic devices are just tools, which might help you get a better access to literature. His main princible was that you had to find your own meaning in literature. As long as you could give plausible reasons for your way of reaching a conclusion it didn't matter if that conclusion was the "official" understanding of a certain text or if it was a very novel approach of understanding this special piece of literature. I've always been an avid reader, but he made me love literature even more. He managed to make every class fun and made us not fear exams. He convinced the school to let us read contemporary books normally not on the book list, like Patrick Süßkind's "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer". And he claimed taking our class to the movies to see "Pretty Woman" was a legitimate excursion when the subject of fairy tales was on our curriculum.

Do you happen to know, if the Fawkes Comic will also be available outside the U.S.? Or you could come to FEDCON again next year and bring some of the comics with you. :-) (Would've loved to ask Felicia Day about them, but didn't get a chance as so many people wanted to ask something...)

Did you ever consider coming to ESSEN, Germany and visit the biggest gaming convention in the world??? http://www.internationalespieltage.de/e000.php4 Exhibitors include authors and publishers from all over the world (e.g. Canada and Japan) It also has a part called "Comic Action", where you can see young artists at work. In total it's 4 days of fun and gaming, because almost every booth offers one or more games to play right there. As a huge Discworld-fan for me this year's highlight of course is Treefrog's "Discworld" by Martin Wallace. :-) If you ever come to Germany in October, you just have to schedule your stay so that it includes a visit of the "SPIEL"...! If you do and happen to need a guide of some sort or someone to play with, just let me know... ;-)