In Nothing Was Delivered, we look at announced comic book projects that never came about. We'll try to find out WHY they didn't come out. I'm sure you all know tons of examples of comic book projects like these, so feel free to write me at brianc@cbr.com to tell me some for future columns.
Today, we look at what could have been with the Books of Magic miniseries from DC Comics.
The published version of Books of Magic came out from 1990-1991. It was written by Neil Gaiman and each issue was painted by a different artist.
The first issue was painted by John Bolton...
The second issue was painted by Scott Hampton...
The third issue was painted by Charles Vess...
The final issue was painted by Paul Johnson...
The series was a fascinating look into the DC Universe's magical worlds. It was seen through the eyes of young Tim Hunter, who could possibly become the world's most powerful magician. Gaiman was sort of riffing on the idea of T. H. White's The Once and Future King with Tim Hunter. The "Trenchcoat Brigade" of powerful magicians (John Constantine, Mister E, Phantom Stranger and Doctor Occult) take Tim on a journey through first the past of magic in the DC Universe, then the present, the world of the faerie and finally a look at a possible future.
It's an awesome comic book series and Tim Hunter became a very popular character who starred in a really good follow-up ongoing series (a couple of them, actually).
Naturally, Neil Gaiman, being sort of the centerpiece of DC Comics' Vertigo Universe with his work on Sandman and Death, was a strong choice to write such an important series for the DC worlds of magic. However, Gaiman was not the original writer on the series. No, when it was first announced in the late 1980s by Bob Greenberger, it was going to be a series by J.M. DeMatteis and painted art by Kent Williams and Jon J. Muth.
Years ago, I checked with the always informative DeMatteis and he filled me in what happened with the series...
Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='What Happened?']
J.M explained:
Yes, it’s true, I was the original writer of BOOKS OF MAGIC and the plan was to have Jon J Muth, Kent Williams, Dave McKean and others doing the art. My memory is that. after the plan was firmed up, the artists decided, for reasons that I can’t recall, not to get involved with the project; so I stepped back from it, as well. I don’t think I ever got around to writing anything — we were in the very early stages of development.
At the time, I was a little disappointed that the project fell through, but, clearly, it all worked out very well in the end!
J.M. also noted to me that his original plan was to have one page be all text and the opposite page be painted artwork.
Years later, he would use that format with the aforementioned Jon J. Muth to do Farewell, Moonshadow...
Obviously, the published Books of Magic was amazing, but I think the DeMatteis one would have been quite good, as well!
If anyone has a suggestion for another interesting comic book series that never got published, let me know at brianc@cbr.com!