Books of Magic, Vol. 1: Moveable Type

It's a little hard to look at this now without thinking of Harry Potter, since the latter happened to use a number of similar tropes - despite, of course, Books of Magic having come out first. The similarities are superficial and coincidental, but the enormous popularity of the other series still makes them hard to ignore. If you can get past that (it probably helps if, like me, you happened to read Gaiman's work before Rowling's) this is a good story, a reboot of sorts of the original from the '90s. It's primarily a character piece, with Hunter setting out on his path of learning magic and struggling with everyday concerns at school. It's not one for those who like action, although there's certainly some menace in the background and the occasional splash of gore. It's also a slow burn; one I found intriguing enough to want to continue to follow, but that some might find overly decompressed.

Ugh this might have been a four but there were several things that annoyed me. First Tom Fowler's depictions of faces was maddeningly distracting and confusing, was the character hurt? No, Fowler just draws weird faces sometimes rendering teenager to look like they're geriatric or oddly puffy. I didn't understand the animosity between Tyler and Tim, I guess there needed to be an antagonist? But that feels pretty weak as the much more interesting antagonist is the threat of other magicians. Because teenage boys? That feels lazy and unimaginative.
And the last thing, why is Tim so open about magic at school?
Maybe this is closer to a 2.5
But things that I loved: the return of Yo-yo, the tie in to the storyline about The Dreaming crumbling, Hettie, and the ravens

I don't know how to feel about Dr. Rose