"Popular culture is not necessarily permanent culture. Pop can temporarily satisfy a craving without providing long-term sustenance, while the best of permanent culture does both. After seeing Harry Potter and 
the Half-Blood Prince only a few hours ago, it strikes me this is the distinction between the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises.
While the boy wizard has cast a kind of magic that will perhaps last for generations, the teen vamporn series is leading a charmed life with an expiration date ..."
This quote was part of an introduction for a piece I was writing contrasting the boy wizard and the vampire boy ... until I read this article by Melissa Ruggieri of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Love it or loathe it, Ruggieri nicely compares the two and probably does a better job than I would have (not to mention she had this fun illo. from John Ownby to use). The one drawback is that I had to scrap most of a column right before deadline.
Ruggieri also references the must-read March 2009 USA Weekend interview with Stephen King where he delivers the money quote that, "both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people ... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good."
-aaron sagers