The Books of Magic

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Succession Crisis: Happens in Auberon's Tale, which takes place long in the past. When the old king dies, the child Auberon is named his successor, but he's not the only one with a claim to the throne. Adaptational Jerkass: Tim in the original version was a good kid whose main flaws was passiveness and a tendency to get too caught up in himself and his own problems to notice what other people were going through, but who also had a bit of a Chronic Hero Syndrome syndrome going on and would always go out of his way to help those in need. This version is much more an antisocial and temperamental Jerk with a Heart of Gold with a disturbingly ruthless and violent streak towards people he doesn't like, and various people's concerns that he'll grow up to be a terrible, dark wizard seem a lot more justified. That said, he's still basically good. He's far less passive and his first impulse is still to help rather than harm, and he does try his best to take care of people in need.

Tim Hunter was created by writer Neil Gaiman when DC Comics asked him to come up with a four issue prestige-format series "about our magic characters". [1] Drawing on a childhood spent working his way through the children's section in his local library and a childhood love of magic and fantasy stories [2] such as T. H. White's The Once and Future King, [3] Gaiman created a character reminiscent of Wart except that instead of being destined to be King, Tim Hunter's destiny was to become the world's greatest magician. [4] Gaiman's story was structured to use different artists for each issue, and it was the artist for the first issue, John Bolton, who designed Tim's appearance, basing him on his own son. [5] When The Books of Magic was initially released over 1990–91, it proved very popular and led Vertigo Comics Executive Editor Karen Berger to make it a regular ongoing series under editor Stuart Moore. [4]the artwork in The Books of Magic is splendid, a real treat. John Bolton, Scott Hampton, and Paul Johnson create shadowy, smearily impressionistic, layered, slowly shifting, ambiguously dream-like imagery that throws everything into question, including the narrative itself. classic fairy tale illustrator Charles Vess brings his own unique and enchanting style to his piece; the results are quite different (reminscent of the stylized, now-retro illustrations in old children's books like The Wizard of Oz), but are also suberb - Vess is a perfect artist for the third book's journey into Faerie. The concept was later expanded upon by other Vertigo authors, first in a 75-issue series by John Ney Rieber and Peter Gross, and later in a series that became part of The Sandman Universe. Gaiman is a deft enough storyteller that Tim isn't just a blank presence—he's more of a snot than Rowling's young wizard, and he has a low-key but ominous taste for power. As a useful stand-in for the reader, Tim is a tourist through eldritch realms of fandom detritus and continuity porn (a comic-geek term that refers to excessive attention to narrative integrity at the expense of the story itself). The books span characters like Zatanna, Zatara, Dr. Fate, and Dr. Occult, organizing all the accumulated layers of DC's corporate property into a solemn wiki-before-there-were-wikis. The Books of Magic functions as more of an encyclopedia than a story. Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Molly has traces of this; for a while she almost looked like she was usurping Tim's status as main character, before she was Put on a Bus. A film version of The Books of Magic has been in development hell for many years. It was originally optioned "by Warner Bros. some years before the first Harry Potter book was published" [49] (a series which has been frequently compared to this series (see Harry Potter influences and analogues)), with Neil Gaiman signing on as executive producer in 1998. [50] After several years of drafting and redrafting, the script moved so far from the original concept that Gaiman and Paul Levitz advised the filmmakers that any audience seeing it expecting a film based on the comic would be disappointed, and decided to develop the movie themselves. They worked with screenwriter Matt Greenberg, who had written early drafts of the original script, to come up with some closer to the original story. [51] As yet, no adaption has been filmed or scheduled for release.

The faerie market also makes references to amongst other things My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Rupert Bear, and a possible future Sir Timothy Hunter, which can be seen directly to the right of Tim Hunter when he first arrives at the market. Evil Chancellor: The Amadan is one in Auberon's Tale, casting new light on his appearances and many of his actions in Books of Magic. Cursed with Awesome: Molly grows a garden (a "real garden", as in, "tomato orchard", not "pleasure garden") while in Faerie, and Titania gets miffed about this for no good reason, so she puts an enchantment on the garden. When Molly eats one of the fruits, she gets cursed and is constantly on fire without burning. Molly is pissed, of course, but she puts the curse to good use by burning everything that stands in her way on her march to the Titania's palace. In 2012, Timothy Hunter and the Books of Magic make a return in The New 52 series Justice League Dark where a reluctant Tim, having given up his magic, is reunited with John Constantine and Madame Xanadu to stop an old nemesis of Constantine's from getting his hands on the books. Laser-Guided Amnesia: In Life During Wartime, Tim has imposed this on himself in his created world. It doesn't last.

Gaiman used the four issues to formally split the structure of the story and allow for a different artist to draw each issue:

Death of a Child: Any child or infant that shows up in Life During Wartime will die a gruesome death. It is up to Tim to choose his destiny. Great power comes at great cost and it may be more than he is willing to pay.There have also been a few spin-off mini-series under the collective title The Books of Faerie, which focus on supporting characters like Titania, Auberon and Molly. Neil Gaimon Interview, Stardust". MoviesOnline. 2007. Archived from the original on March 27, 2008 . Retrieved April 28, 2008.