Spellbound
Kat Howard turns a new page of the Books Of Magic
Often compared to JK Rowling’s famous boy wizard, teenage mage Tim Hunter actually made his debut in 1990 prestige format mini-series
The Books Of Magic, seven years before the publication of the first
Harry Potter novel. Going on to rack up 75 issues of his own Vertigo monthly, the 13-year-old Tim Hunter that appears in Books Of
Magic has been described by Neil Gaiman as “a Tim Hunter for a new time.” Gaiman also cryptically hints that “the old Tim Hunter may well have existed, and that may actually have ramifications down the line.”
“It’s not an absolutely clean slate, as there are specific references to Neil’s Books Of Magic run,” says Kat Howard, who has been paired with artist Tom Fowler. “But I do feel like I’ve been given a lot of freedom in writing the character and the story. So new readers can come in and find something they love, and my hope is that people who have read the series before will come back and find something new.”
Having contributed to 2016 anthology Stories – which Gaiman edited alongside Al Sarrantonio – it was Howard’s ability to handle spells and casting in her 2016 novella with Maria Dahvana Headley, The End Of
The Sentence, that made her a natural fit for Books Of Magic. Especially as there is an actual book of magic in the series. “I’m very excited about that,” she says. “So you can expect to learn more about them, to meet some old friends and enemies, and to see Tim learn what kind of person and what kind of magician he is.”