Tim Hunter was created by writer Neil Gaiman when DC Comics asked him to come up with a four issue prestige-format series "about our magic characters".

[1] Drawing on a childhood spent working his way through the children's section in his local library and a childhood love of magic and fantasy stories[2] such as T. H. White's The Once and Future King,[3] Gaiman created a character reminiscent of Wart except that instead of being destined to be King, Tim Hunter's destiny was to become the world's greatest magician.

Although he already appeared in a mini-series, the character's main function had been to bear witness to the past, present and future of magic in the DC universe and so did not offer a writer much detail to work with.

[6] This dislike led to a perceived decline in the quality of the book as Rieber wrote his final batch of issues, with the character of Tim often sidelined in the stories in favor of his girlfriend, Molly.

This preference also affected Tim's character in other ways, as Rieber requested that Molly not be used in the book after his departure to allow him to develop his own projects using her — causing the in-story break up of the two young lovers that led to them not seeing each other for many years.

[9] The series was cancelled after 25 issues, and Vertigo decided to relaunch again, this time bringing back a Tim Hunter in Si Spencer's Books of Magick: Life During Wartime.

In fact, there was even a story in 2000AD (called the Journals of Luke Kirby) which came out a few years before The Books of Magic, which was extremely similar to both the BoM and Harry Potter.

[12]In the last issue of the ongoing (second) The Books of Magic series, writer/artist Peter Gross played on the similarity to Potter, showing Tim's step brother Cyril putting on a glamor stone that made him look like Timothy.