musicgeek
DUDE! TOTALLY not true. It's the POTO
movie fans who don't know the book exists. Trust me. I am a hardcore phan (in fact it's the one musical that beats Wicked) and Leroux's novel is one of my very favorite books. If you hit fanfiction.net and look up POTO, there's a ton of book based stuff. The REAL phans can not only sing every song by heart, but can also describe the storylines of both the novel and the musical by heart. But the real sign of a dedicated phan: they can tell you the phantom's real name.
sweatdrop Anyway... sorry about that rant. I take my Phantom a little too seriously sometimes. Do forgive me! Please?
sad
Yeah, it is mostly the movie fans, but not exclusively. Though I wasn't around then, I've been told that there was (albeit on a much smaller scale) that same sort of ignorant behavior among new musical fans before there was a movie. As for the Phantom's name, that used to be the case, but now the practice of calling every Phantom 'Erik', whether he is in that version or not, has crept its way among the movie phans as well.
Are you a member of Phanwank by any chance...?