This time around, a short episode of "Comical Wednesday!" You're welcome.
He was created by an English author. He's only a boy, but he is destined to become an incredibly powerful wizard. His mother is dead. He has dark hair and wears glasses. He has an owl for a pet. He's met and/or been involved with most of the magical characters in the DC Comics Universe.
"Whoa! What was that last sentence? DC Comics Universe? Since when is or was Harry Potter involved in the DC Comics Universe?"
Well... He wasn't. But I'm not talking about Harry Potter. I'm talking about Tim Hunter.
"And who the hell is Tim Hunter?"
Tim Hunter was the star of several different DC Comics series and mini-series. He was created in 1990 by English author and comic book scribe, Neil Gaiman. He first appeared in the mini-series Books of Magic.
Harry Potter was created by author J.K. Rowling. Rowling's first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was finished in 1995 and first appeared in print in 1997.
So, at this point you may very well be thinking, "All those similarities! Did J.K. Rowling rip off Neil Gaiman?"
Well, Neil Gaiman himself doesn't think so, although there have been reports to the contrary. Here's what he had to say on the subject back in 1998:
Back in November [1997] I was tracked down by a Scotsman journalist who had noticed the similarities between my Tim Hunter character and Harry Potter, and wanted a story. And I think I rather disappointed him by explaining that, no, I certainly didn't believe that Rowling had ripped off Books of Magic, that I doubted she'd read it and that it wouldn't matter if she had: I wasn't the first writer to create a young magician with potential, nor was Rowling the first to send one to school. It's not the ideas, it's what you do with them that matters.
And I'm not going to add anything to that. Besides, I promised this would be a relatively short post!
Thanks for your time.
True, it is what you do with them. Even if they look very very very suspicious at times.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that if Rowling really had stolen Harry Potter, she's definitely smart enough to have invented a different visual for the character. Maybe a redhead, maybe a girl... whatever.
DeleteI agree, and she probably would have used a giant sparrow, no owl. You know, if she had read the earlier work and wanted to work against similarities.
ReplyDeleteRight! Few ripoff artists would be that obvious!
DeleteInteresting, I read about the similarities and I always found it a bit suspicious. One does have to wonder why the main characters look like twins? Coincidence or something more? Perhaps, a bit of magic at play,
ReplyDeleteI don't know how Rowling came up with the visual for Harry Potter. John Bolton, the artist who created Tim Hunter's look for the first issue of Books of Magic, based Tim on his own son.
DeleteI could something that has happened to many people in an art field...namely she may have seen the comic books at her friends house or a relative. If she knows someone with a young boy, at that time, he may have had a comic boy or 2 lying around. She may have looked at it and forgot about it only to bring it up as something she conjured up(sorry). She ma have forgotten that she even remembered looking at them and can’t recall it all. This has happened to other people so that might be a reason...or she did know and ripped it off knowing she could get away with it.
ReplyDeleteThat's very possible, but my opinion is that it wasn't a conscious "borrowing."
DeleteHow odd.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Innit?
DeleteWe're laconic.
DeletePithy.
DeleteI haven't read Books of Magic, but Gaiman's short story Snow, Glass, Apples is one of my top favourite reads of all time. It makes for a great Halloween read!
ReplyDeleteI've read all the HP books, watched all the films too. Can't believe it started so long ago, 1997?? Good grief!
Sometimes writers/people are influenced by things they have absorbed unknowingly and then forgotten, could have been the case here, or merely a coincidence.
It is kind of hard to believe the Harry Potter stories started twenty years ago. Personally, I didn't get involved with them until I watched all the movies for the first time only a few short months ago. I have yet to read the novels.
DeleteYes, that sure was a short one. You keep your promises.
ReplyDelete"Neil Gaiman himself doesn't think so..." (ripping off his stories, not you keeping your promises). I guess that's all that matters.
Heh. I agree completely.
Delete"It's not the ideas, it's what you do with them that matters." That's a good quote. I think if we were to survey a bunch of stories of a similar genre, we will probably see a lot of unintended similarities pop up between stories.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
Delete