From: lsmith@deci.cs.umn.edu (Lance "Squiddie" Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: Info/Opinions wanted on _Books of Magic_
Date: 4 Oct 92 22:13:54 GMT
Organization: Little Occult Squids of the Poor

In <1992Oct3.141235.29236@sol.ctr.columbia.edu> daniel@csgi63.dcs.leeds.ac.uk (D N Crow) writes:

>In article <1992Oct3.043753.25530@leland.Stanford.EDU>, jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:
>> 
>> 	I've never read any of these, but I know that Neil Gaiman wrote for
>> them.  I was wondering if people could inform me about the series history.
>> Is it still being printed?  If not, how many were printed, etc.

>No. Books of Magic was a four-book limited series. There were just the four
>books, and I don't believe (can anyone correct this?) that any further
>books are to be expected. I can dig out ISBN numbers and book names if this
>would be of help.

There were just the four issues of the Books of Magic. There's a tenuous
connection to the Mister E miniseries. There was also some talk about a
Tmothy Hunter title in the Vertical[*] line, but I think that's in limbo.
It has been posted that Books of Magic might/will be printed as a collection
in January. I wonder if it's too late to ask for a hardcover edition. 

>> 	I'd also like people's opinion's on how good they are/were.  I really
>> like Gaiman's other stuff (esp. Sandman and Black Orchid).  Are these at all
>> comparable?  

>Personally, I liked them a great deal. The artwork is superior to much of
>that in Sandman, and the stories are up to Gaiman's high standards. I prefered
>it to Black Orchid, which I found a bit derivative (I got the impression that
>NG was doing a sub-Moore superhero tale and was not really comfortable with
>the genre). Still, that's all IMHO. If you liked Sandman, I imagine you'll
>get much enjoyment out of Books of Magic. Here in the UK at least they can be
>a little hard to find...

On the whole it's a very good series. I do think some issues are better than
others. The one thing you may find confusing is that it's packed with just
about all of DC's magical characters from over the years. If you aren't a 
big fan of the DC continuum, you may find some of it confusing. It's
still very readiable, but you may wonder who certain characters are and why 
they're doing what they're doing. Boston Brand constantly showing up may
only be funny if you know who Deadman is or was.

(BTW, anyone want to volunteer to do a annotation of the Books of Magic? Oh
come on! There's only four issues.)

The artwork is very nice. (At least I liked it. Some of my friends weren't
happy with certain issues.) The most popular issue around here (Twin Cities)
seems to be issue #3 which has Charlie Vess painting the fairylands. (This
issue includes a cameo appearance by the creative team.) It's nice to see
certain characters painted in nice rich colors (or nice rich black and white
in the case of Morpheus.) 

My advice is to buy the issues if you find them for a reasonable amount,
but wait for the collection otherwise.

[*] "Comics so upright, they're vertical!"
--
     Lance "William Blake?" Smith     |   "Bring me my bat of burning gold!
         (lsmith@cs.umn.edu)          |    Bring me my pine tar of desire!
 "The Cat. He walked by himself, and  |    Bring me my glove! O clouds unfold!
    all places were alike to him."    |    Bring me my fastball of fire!"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc