Books of Magic

Genres: Fantasy
Publisher: DC Comics

Vol 1: 1990 – 1991
The Books of Magic was a four-issue prestige-format limited series, released from late 1990 to early 1991, meant to explore various magical characters and settings in the DC Universe through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy named Timothy Hunter, guided by Zatanna and the Trenchcoat Brigade — an newly created, informal team of DC’s magic-based characters consisting of John Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, Mister E, and Doctor Occult and Rose Psychic.
Initially meant to be a three-issue series written by J.M. DeMatteis, various production setbacks led to Neil Gaiman becoming a writer instead, with a rotating quartet of artists supplying full-painted illustrations. The series was a success, and editor Karen Berger would launch an ongoing Books of Magic series under DC’s mature readers Vertigo imprint to further chronicle Timothy’s adventures. In 1999, the Trenchcoat Brigade would reunite for a titular limited series of their own.

Vol 2: May 1994 – August 2000
The Books of Magic (Volume 2) is a seventy-five issue ongoing series published by Vertigo from 1994 to 2000. The first fifty issues were written by John Ney Rieber, with the concluding twenty-five written by series artist Peter Gross. It continues the story of young magus Tim Hunter from Neil Gaiman’s earlier limited series, and features a number of returning characters from some of Gaiman’s other DC/Vertigo work, such as King Auberon and Queen Titania of the Fair Lands, as well as introducing a number of new supporting characters, including Molly O’Reilly, Leah, Araquel, Amadan, Barbatos, Gwendolyn, and Circe. The Books of Faerie volumes one, two, and three are spin-offs of this title, with Gross providing art for the first two volumes, and Rieber writing the third. Following the series’s conclusion with issue 75, Tim Hunter’s story would be continued in Names of Magic (Volume 1).

Vol 3: October 24 2018
Books of Magic (Volume 3) is an ongoing series published by Vertigo starting in 2018. It is part of Vertigo’s Sandman Universe line, and is written by Kat Howard and penciled by Tom Fowler.

Books of Magic

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