JK Rowling disappears from Harry Potter in this trans artist’s books
BOOKS – The work is purchased at nominal value when it leaves the artist. Laur Flom changes the books of the saga Harry Potter so JK Rowling’s name no longer appears there. The Toronto, Canada-based artist has become known for custom covers of best-selling books on TikTok.
Since the British author has repeatedly made remarks that are considered transphobic, many readers refuse to continue enriching him and do not like to see his name on their shelves. In early 2022, Laure Flom then decided to remove JK Rowling from seven volumes of the bespectacled wizard.
Iel shares her progress on TikTok and quickly asks if she has any books “de-Rowlingue” is sold. An artist specializing in polygraphy and bookbinding decided to open his own website “To offer an alternative to people who still want to benefit Harry Potter Without endorsing JK Rowling”.
They buy second-hand books and then painstakingly remove the cover and the first page where the author’s name appears. Then you need to glue certain pages and then add the endpapers, which are the artist’s original works.
Goldsmith’s work
Laur Flom then uses a book press to round the edge and redo the binding. The reinforced and permanently made coating is then glued. The artist drew an element of the story for each volume (the Hogwarts envelope, Hermione’s time turner, the goblet of fire…).
They fulfill every order placed on their site by hand. Each replaced book still costs 230 Canadian dollars, or about 160 euros. A box set of seven volumes costs 1,600 Canadian dollars or more than 1,100 euros.
For a lower price, the artist offers to send interested parties their own copies to convert. 10% of the price of each sale is donated to organizations supporting transgender people in the US and Canada.
In a TikTok video, Laur Flom admits that prices aren’t like that “available” all but justify in detail the materials used and the number of hours worked. They say they earn less than the minimum hourly wage in Ontario with this project.
And copyright?
Because Laur Flom did not print his own copy of the work, but simply made changes to an already printed and marketed book, his business does not in principle violate copyright laws, he explains in the video.
The law professor confirmed his statements to the American media Insider. He added that JK Rowling could eventually claim that her name was trademarked, but that would be it “ink”. The artist still includes in his orders an envelope with torn pages of the author’s name, “more for fun than legal necessity”.
In 2023, Laur Flom intends to tackle another successful saga: Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. But this time there will be purely creative packages and the name of the author will be clearly visible.
See also The HuffPost :
