I get picture in my mind of what the characters look like. If see a screen adaptation before reading the book(s), that adaptation will influence me as I read, but not completely. For example, I'm a fan of Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason books. Having seen most of the shows before coming to the books, it's hard to read the Perry Mason novels without seeing Raymond Burr speaking all of Perry's Lines. But although I loved the actors on the TV show, I picture Della Street as a tad more glamorous than Barbara Hale, Paul Drake a
lot lankier and much more ordinary looking than William Hopper, Hamilton Burger as very little like William Talman, and Lt. Arthur Tragg as nothing at all like Ray Collins (though I loved Collins in the role).
Reading books before seeing the movie or TV show usually makes me angry that the book or TV show got everything wrong. Comic strips in the paper are a prime example. Growing up, I always had a clear knowledge of what the Peanuts characters sounded like. Then along came the TV shows and the voices of the characters were a lot less sassy than I had heard them in my mind.
I guess this post rather dates me.
