Huon the Small relates to Tim about Lucifer's fall from heaven:
"...things often are before there is a place for them to be. So it was with the fallen.
Before the Son of the Morning and his legions were cast down, there was no hell below heaven. There was only a void. Not a place, but an unbound emptiness which heaven's lord had never deigned to shape or seal with his will.
There Lucifer found himself, when he had fallen farther from the Light than any spirit before him had ever dreamed of falling. He folded his bloody hands and his flaming wings, and he considered the unplace where his blind pride had brought him.
And he found it.....good.
Lucifer set the fire of his will upon the void....And while the void raged with the heat of his fury, he sealed it with a sacrifice such as none but he might make, consecrating the soul of the brightest of angels to the purpose of the darkest of demons: offering Lucifer to Lucifer: himself to himself.
The fallen trembled. Spirits who had dared contend against the archangels Michael and Gabriel.....spirits who has not feared Araquel the Deathbringer in battle.....even they cried out, and hid their eyes from the sight.
And when he saw that no eyes in hell but his remained open, Lucifer spread wide his wings and the light he had been cast [,] the shadow he had become into the void.."
-- The Books of Magic #38: Rites of Passage: "A World of One" (published by DC Vertigo)
Art by Peter Snejbjerg
Molly - I never had imaginary friends.
Tim - But you must have. Didn't you tell me you used to see stuff?
Molly - Not friends.
Tim - What, you had imaginary enemies?
Molly - No-o-o...more like imaginary newsflashes. Little stories, about things happening...mostly to people I didn't know, thank God.
-- the Books of Magic #15: Playgrounds (Part One)
What's the Books of Magic? Visit Suburban Mythos, an established BoM website. Timothy Hunter was a very ordinary (and even nerdy-looking) middle-classed 14 year-old Brit who lives with his widowed and recently re-married father, when four major figures from the mystic circles -- John Constantine, Dr Occult, The Phantom Stranger and Mr. E -- accost him and tell him that he is destined to be the most powerful magician of our age. They proceed to show him the world of magic, past present and future, opening his eyes to worlds beyond ours.
Quickly his life becomes anything but ordinary. He learns that his parents aren't his natural parents, that he may or may not be the bastard son of Titania, the Queen of Faerie, that all the make-believe characters of his childhood have come to life, and that half of the dabblers in the occult know his potential as a mage, and are pulling out the stops to corrupt, enslave or kill him. And in the process, all the people he knows, from his father to his girlfriend, have become fair game. But he also has his share of protectors, from the angel, Araquel, to Death herself.
Without proper grounding in magic, our nascent magician uses his innate mystical abilities instinctively, juggling between girlfriend problems, arithmatics and dodging assasins .
John Ney Rieber took over from Neil Gaiman the Books of Magic (DC Vertigo) which the latter created.
Rieber has made the book very much his own -- many of the characters in the regular series are his, not Gaiman's. Yet he stays faithful to its original concept. While his work on BoM has been criticised by some (especially the 'Rites of Passage' story which some readers considered meandering), I feel he's one of the best regular Vertigo writer around presently, and the Books nicely fill the vacuum left by the demise of the Sandman. (And he's not even British!)
It's rumoured that Rieber in fact doesn't like Tim Hunter, the lead character, but authenticity of that piece of information notwithstanding, what is evident is that he likes Molly O'Reilly, Tim's feisty girlfriend a lot (as do many readers!) cos she nearly always upstages Tim! :)
As of #51 artist Peter Gross takes over the reins from Rieber who has left the book (sniff!) to develop other projects including BoM related ones (yay!) amongst them a miniseries on Molly.
His other credits include the noir-ish Shadows Fall, Mythos, and Weird War Tales.
More snippets from the Books of Magic can be read at Peter Snejbjerg's page. Follow this link to read the transcript of a online chat of John Rieber, Peter Gross and BoM fans. (Walt Simonson drops by too!) Link to an interview with John Ney Rieber
