A Moment from Grad School Orientation

Got chatting with a guy in the creative writing program who will be in the same writing class as I. Turns out he wants to write a novel about Injun Jo, a character from Twain's Tom Sawyer. The following commences:

ME: Do you know what fanfic is?
HE: Sure.
ME: Question for you: Would you or would you not say that this novel idea, as it were, of yours is fanfic?
HE: Uhhhh. No. It's a parallel novel. It's part of a literary tradition!
ME: And that's different....how?
HE: Uhhh. Because this is art? And fanfic is for entertainment?

Fascinating, Captain.