The Names of Magic

The Books of Magic

by Dylan Horrocks, Richard Case (Illustrator)

From the pages of The Books of Magic comes a new tale of Tim Hunter, the young man destined to become the greatest magician of our time...Tim Hunter has lost his girlfriend and family; the price Tim has had to pay for his initiation into the world of magic. Now, Tim wants the abilities he's paid for - and to learn to control his vast power. To do so, he must enter the White School, a place where he will be able to study without fear of the many groups who would control him and harness his power for their own dark ends. But to enter the White School, Tim must discover his true name, and his true identity - while evading the clutches of a deadly array of enemies...


Reprints/Collects:
#1 Chapter One: Invocation
#2 Chapter Two: Faith
#3 Chapter Three: Spirit
#4 Chapter Four: Flight
#5 Chapter Five: Truth

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Supernatural

124 pages, Graphic Novel

First published June 1, 2002

About the author

Horrocks has been involved in the New Zealand comic scene since the mid 1980s, when he co-founded Razor with Cornelius Stone and had his work published in the University of Auckland student magazine Craccum. Later in the decade he began to get international recognition, having work published by Australia's Fox Comics and the American Fantagraphics Books. He then moved to the United Kingdom where he self-published several mini-comics and co-founded Le Roquet, a comics annual. Upon returning to New Zealand in the mid 1990s, Horrocks had a half-page strip called 'Milo's Week' in the current affairs magazine New Zealand Listener from 1995 to 1997. He also produced Pickle, published by Black Eye Comics, in which the 'Hicksville' story originally appeared. Hicksville was published in book form in 1998, achieving considerable critical success. French, Spanish and Italian editions have since been published. In the last decade Horrocks has written and drawn a wide range of projects including scripts for Vertigo's Hunter: The Age of Magic and the Batgirl series, and Atlas, published by Drawn and Quarterly.
Horrocks' work has been displayed at the Auckland Art Gallery and Wellington's City Gallery. In 2002 Hicksville won an Eisner Award for Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition, and the same year Atlas was nominated for the Harvey Award for Best Single Issue or Story in 2002. In 2006 he was appointed University of Auckland/Creative New Zealand Literary Fellow.[1]
In an interview with Comics Bulletin, Horrocks claimed that his first words were 'Donald Duck'.

Reviews

[Diana · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reads like bad fanfiction. Not a single character was IN character and not a single relationship dynamic was portrayed accurately.
I wonder if the creators actually read any of the Books of Magic comics before or just the Wikipedia entries on them
Also the conclusion was one of the lamest things I've ever read.

[Adam Stone · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're not starved for boy wizard comics, I'd skip this one even more than I'd skipped the previous Books Of Magic runs.

This volume features Constantine and a slew of characters from Gaiman's original miniseries, all behaving uncharacteristically and with dialogue that doesn't remotely resemble previous issues.

I regret that instead of reading these Tim Hunter books one at a time as occasional breaks from the main Hellblazer story, I had to read five of them in quick succession because I feel like it turned me from apathetic to the character to annoyed with the series. I just don't care about anyone in these books, and I know I have one more series of it to go before I reach the 2022 relaunch.

This may hit you differently if you absolutely love tropey YA fantasy, but it didn't appeal to me at all.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Names of Magic Dylan Horrocks comes aboard as Tim's new writer with a miniseries whose goal is to deliver him to the White School. The plot is weak, because it's a five-issue long chase, but Horrocks does a good job of introducing interesting new characters, both friend and foe, and also makes some nice connections to Arthurian mythos. It gives you some hope for his work once he gets outside the constraints of a miniseries [4/5].

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was younger, I had fantasies of being a great wizard, of being able to conjure things from thin air with the power of words and gestures. I doubt I was alone, as magicians are a special favorite of children, who aren't so skeptical to search for the wires and trick pockets. The Vertigo series, "The Books of Magic," taps directly into those fantasies in its depiction of young Timothy Hunter, who can not only perform feats of magic, but is destined to be the greatest wizard of all time. That is, if he can survive adolescence.

In this he, of course, resembles that other famous fledgling wizard, and the stories have some of the same moral lessons along with their sympathetic protagonists. Harry Potter is written for young adults, and while Tim Hunter's tale is part of the Vertigo line, suppossedly a comic (or today's preffered term, the graphic novel) meant for adults, in this particular case it rarely contains anything more shocking than prime time TV.

The latest installment of Tim's story, The Names of Magic, doesn't really add anything to the drama of his story, but it does fill in some of the pieces of his mystery by answering the question of his parentage. It's a well done adventure, presented nicely, and a welcome addition to the series, but I do hope that there's more to "The Books of Magic" than this as several threads from the main tale remained unfulfilled, especially the powerful love story between Tim and Molly.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

I generally like Dylan Horrocks' work with Tim Hunter more than Neil Gaiman's. Not that I dislike the original stuff, mind you. But Dylan swaps some of the existential wankery for more action, which I appreciate. Character development is still great, though.

[M.i. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wish it were longer, seems to be a gap between young Tim and who he has become in this book. There's a lot about Tim and the characters he encounters that can be expanded on.