Wazzu posted:

Books of Magic started out as a 4 comic run by Neil Gaiman, and that was a fantastic tale that was in many ways, a Christmas Carol about Magic rather than how tim is evil. Even if you don't like the rest of it, read these 4 issues, simply amazing stuff.

After this was a 75 issue run that changed the tone considerably, including teen angst, love interests and an often unlikeable main character amongst the continued horrors of magic theme. I quite enjoyed the whole run though, despite it's many flaws and occasional bad plot arcs. Why? Because of the ending, which is the greatest payoff I've read in comics. Which brings me to my second reccomendation: If you can't get the entire run (DC have only released 1-50 in trades), it's not reading too much.