Euthy: In fairness, “lost a parent at a young age” is basically a prerequisite for becoming a superhero.
__Web_Browser: “ The superficial similarities are striking – but no more so than any number of other stories in the genre. As Gaiman has repeatedly said, he and Rowling were merely drinking from the same well. 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. This is a genre – and Gaiman and Rowling are both playing with the conventions of the genre, to different ends.[41] ”
daitenshe: >The similarity was noted by a journalist from The Scotsman newspaper, who asked Gaiman if he thought Rowling was aware of his 1990 comic, to which Gaiman replied that he “wasn’t the first writer to create a young magician with potential, nor was Rowling the first to send one to school”
A40: Disney’s *Sword in the Stone*: a young orphan boy is informed by a wizard that he was born special and has a great destiny, has many magical adventures accompanied by an owl…
jmg83: Potter has more in common with Sparrowhawk from the *Earthsea* novels than he does with Tim Hunter.
Kid raised primarily by his dead mother’s sister shows talent for magic.
Meets a wizard who lives in a hut in a forest who inducts him into a world of magic.
Protagonist goes to wizard school run by extremely powerful old guy, and befriends a kid who grew up on a farm with numerous siblings. Forms a rivalry with a smug toff who is jealous of protagonists’ fame around the school.
Protagonist’s main enemy is an evil wizard who has an irrational fear of death and seeks to become immortal. Evil wizard is a weird-looking motherfucker who thinks he’s the shit because he’s gotten hold of a staff/wand that belonged to some extremely powerful wizard back in the day.
The protagonists of both series are a wizard with a distinctive scar on his face.
Isaacvithurston: I mean harry potter is just a collection of wizard/witch sterotypes dating back hundreds of years.
ZhouDa: Better name the protagonist after the teenage hero of a [fantasy B-movie from the 80’s then.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092115/)
Gyarydos: Tbh tho , alot of Harry potter was following a lot of previous magic tropes
Drakeytown: and even Gaiman had said that while Rowling wasn’t the first author to send a young wizard to school neither was he. There’s a lot of pre potter sources that seem similar both to potter and to each other because these are not just tropes but cliches of the genre.
Snaaaaakey: Holy shit I read this when I was 12 and I’ve been unable to remember what it was called for years. Thanks for unintentionally jogging my memory OP.
lowertechnology: Gaimen is such a class act. He never even *hints* that Rowling could have stolen his idea. Puts it all up to coincidence (which it probably was).
The guy is my hero
MrPapaya22: Isn’t he a Zatanna supporting character
tatsuedoa: Almost every idea has a counterpart that just didnt take off as well or wasnt executed right despite being very similar. These similarities are pretty vague, pretty much just filling in a “protagonist” chart and they both happened to pick young male wizard.
90s wasnt a great year for comics, even if DC didnt get hit the hardest and the series did fairly well. Rowling used a different medium with different takes and it worked for her. It happens.
Selkie1960: Harry didn’t have a floating girlfriend, and his mum wasn’t a green Queen of the fairies that mated with some guy that could turn into a raptor.
soundsaboutWRIGHT: There’s also another book that came out before Harry Potter about a wizards school, in fact I think it was called Wizard Hall and the main character is seriously like Larry or something. Owl, brooms defeating a monster with many souls in it. All of it!
jmg83: When Harry Potter was first caught my notice, I was like “Hold the fuck on…” As Gaiman himself said, though, almost all fiction derives from common roots.
imabadbadbitch: Most fantasy and fiction is pretty same-ish when it comes down to it.
Kuppajo: The Aargh, real monsters cartoon also had the trio of the legacy,the brain and the normal with a big family, all while in a school too. And that was 3 years before the HP books.
Torquil_Olwen: Not to mention, read the article, I just glanced over it and the backstory’s way weirder:) cool to learn about! I’d never heard of this and I love the Sandman comics. Not to mention his books:)
LookALight: a journalist from The Scotsman newspaper, who asked Gaiman if he thought Rowling was aware of his 1990 comic, to which Gaiman replied that he “wasn’t the first writer to create a young magician with potential, nor was Rowling the first to send one to school”.
ZaBlanc: The similarities are…uh…very tiny actually.
RealDeuce: Interestingly, that entire Wikipedia article manages to avoid using the work “owl” until mentioning that Harry Potter has one.
Link2Liam: The new Merlin finally getting people to know who he is. His father was tamlin, so he could also change shape.
Crowforge: I just wish he was a player in DC comics.
Tamazin_: There is an 80’s-something movie about a wizard boy who is called Harry Potter too
sterlingphoenix: Yeah none of that is particularly unique.
Then again, you can apply that to the entirety of the Harry Potter saga, but not to Neil Gaiman’s work.
PartTimePoster: I see this and raise you [Groosham Grange](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/378356.Groosham_Grange) written in 1988. I don’t much care for HP after reading this.
I’d go into it more, but mobile, blah, so have a quote:
>Groosham Grange (1988) and its sequel The Unholy Grail (1999) are a very fun YA comedy/horror series, written by Anthony Horowitz. It follows the adventures of David Elliot as he attends the titular school of magic to become a wizard. There are striking similarities with the much later Harry Potter series: the characters are similar, a magic train from a regular station takes the students to the school, there are talking portraits, a magic mirror as a central plot point, a suspicious teacher stealing a magic cup… and so on, and so forth. Although J.K. Rowling has repeatedly been asked whether or not she’s read the books, she refuses to comment so far.
[source](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/GrooshamGrange)
TiberiusAugustus: *Philosopher’s Stone. Sorcerer’s Stone is the stupid name the US publisher insisted on.
Lobotomist: Reminds me of how Michael Moorcock thinks Sapowski plagiarized Eliric of Melinbone with his portrayal of Witcher Geralt
eqleriq: I invented Perry Hotter in 1998
catjugglinpimp: duracell bunny all over again
CognitiveBlueberry: It always seemed to me that Rowling just lifted lots of ideas from *The Colour of Magic* and pitched them to kids, but the trope is older than that.
Kenhamsbible: JKR borrowed from everywhere and used lots of tropes and clichés. But she did it well.
420blazeityall: So what you’re saying is JK Rowling is a BIG FAT PHONY?
Whorelach: Wow idk that
Vulguero: Well, all of these stories are an ancient archetype, The Hero’s Journey. But it sounds like Gaiman may have grounds for a lawsuit.