The Books of Magic

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Deity of Human Origin: Queen Titania was originally a human peasant girl during the Middle Ages. She is such a powerful sorceress that to all practical intents and purposes she is a Physical God and appears to be The Ageless. Titania easily outmatches most mythological gods in the modern age, as she does not depend on worship for power. The supernatural community in general simply regards her as the godlike Queen of Faerie.

Don't Fear the Reaper: Tim meets Death from Sandman several times; the first is at the end of all time (when the only thing left is Death), the second is when he's in the Afterlife Antechamber because his body is dying from manticore poison. He bumps into her a few other times throughout the series. Yes. And the first issue came out in late 1990, so I don't want to hear anything from the Hogwarts groupies about this being a rip-off of Harry Potter. Parental Neglect: After the death of his wife, the grieving William Hunter spends a lot of time watching the TV or sitting zoned out in that very car instead of being aware of his son. He gets better... And then he dies. Each issue was painted by a different artist, John Bolton, Scott Hampton, Charles Vess and Paul Johnson.Neil Gaimon Interview, Stardust, 2007, archived from the original on 2008-03-27 , retrieved 2008-04-28

The Books of Magic is a comic book series set in the DC Universe's Vertigo imprint, created by Neil Gaiman. It was originally conceived as a "tour" of DC's magical universe, showing off important supervillain and superhero figures, the magical realms, laying down the basic rules of magic, and showing the history of the universe and magic in it from start to finish. The concept was introduced in a 4 issue mini-series written by Gaiman, lasting from January to April, 1991. All told, it's one hell of a journey less like the Inferno and more like a dive into the human psyche to revel in our imagination and our sense of wonder.There were also three spin-off mini-series set in the Faerie realm, entitled The Books of Faerie. The first two volumes dealt with the rise to power of Titania and Auberon respectively, whilst the third documents the misadventures of Molly O'Reilly as she tried to come to terms with the curse placed upon her by Titania during the Girl in the Box storyline. There were also plans to create an ongoing The Books of Faerie series starring Molly O'Reilly, but these were eventually abandoned.

Continuity Porn: The original miniseries. If a character hails from The DCU (circa 1991) and does any amount of magic, they will at the very least get a cameo. 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]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.