Tag: vertigo

The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman

The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman

Tim Hunter is destined to become a great magician… isn’t he? Four magical beings take him on realms other than his own, to educate and warn Tim about the path he is about to embark upon.

It is up to Tim to choose his destiny. Great power comes at great cost and it may be more than he is willing to pay.

“Child, magic exists. There are powers, and forces, and realms beyond the fields you know.”

Photo by Kei Scampa on Pexels.com

The worlds Neil Gaiman has created in The Books of Magic are haunting and layered and will stick with you after you’ve finished the story and closed the book.

So… typical Gaiman then.

“The true Atlantis is inside you, just as it’s inside all of us. The sunken land is lost beneath the dark sea, lost beneath the waves of wet, black stories and myths that break upon the shores of our minds.”

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Beyond the story, the artwork is beautiful in each volume, but different from artist to artist. Not in a jarring way, just noticeably different.

“It’s like there’s a whole other world, that I never knew existed, side by side with the old one.”

Recommended for adults or mature teenagers. There are some scares and thrills on this fantasy journey through other worlds.

Thanks for reading!

Free Country: A Tale of The Children’s Crusade by Neil Gaiman, Alisa Kwitney, Peter Snejbjerg (Illustrator)

Free Country: A Tale of The Children’s Crusade by Neil Gaiman, Alisa Kwitney, Peter Snejbjerg (Illustrator)
freecountry

A fantastic tale about two dead detectives, who are trying to solve a missing person case. It sounds macabre but it’s actually a fairy tale.

Neil Gaiman includes this in his introduction: “I asked Alisa Kwitney, who cowrote much of the second half of The Children’s Crusade, if there was anything she wanted me to point out and she said yes. I should tell people that in the double-page spread with the mermaids and the magic, she had instructed artist Peter Snejbjerg to draw a very young Nail Gaiman reading a book, oblivious to the wonders around him.”

I made sure to check on that page- and there he was. If you read this too, make sure to look for Neil in the full-page spread depicting Free Country.

The premise of this tale is like Peter Pan, but with a twist. There’s a land where children can live in peace and harmony and never grow old… but at what cost.

“Look at them, who call themselves adult- they eat, they work, they sleep. Their pleasures are gross and ugly, their lives are squalid and dark. They no longer feel, or hurt, or dream. And they hurt us. They say every adult has successfully killed at least one child, heh? Free Country is the refuge. In the past, it was the refuge only for the most fortunate of the few. But those days are ending. It will soon be the home of every living child.”

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If I had known the catalog of Vertigo comics, I may have enjoyed this more. But, you don’t need to be an aficionado of comics to enjoy Free Country. It can be a stand-alone graphic novel with plenty of chills and thrills along the way.

It was for me.

Recommended for adults to like twisted tales with a fairy-tale flavor or for 16+ because of the potentially disturbing content.

Thanks for reading!