Author(s): Brian Froud, Terry Jones

Comics & Graphic Novels | Secondhand | Rare or Scarce

Secondhand. First edition.

The Goblins of Labyrinth is a tie-in book to the film Labyrinth, and features sketches by Brian Froud and captions by Terry Jones. The book does not directly refer to the plot of the film, and is primarily composed of sketches of goblins Froud produced as inspiration to the film-makers which are accompanied by comments on each character written by Jones.

Goblins come in all shapes and sizes. Most are small, grotesque creatures who love to torment unsuspecting humans. Others are simply dumb, lazy, loutish brats with unspeakable personal habits. But whatever the type, goblins are malevolent and cantankerous to humans – even when they are on their best behaviour.

Up until now our scanty knowledge of goblins had been based on speculation, but we now know a great deal more, thanks to an important archaeological find by the eminent part-time goblinologist Brian Froud, who stumbled across forty-three notebooks created by Dash, the Reynolds of Goblin portraitists. These precious notebooks are necessarily sketchy, but years of painstaking reconstruction by Froud, backed up by years of dry research by his colleague, the noted academic Terry Jones, have produced what amounts to an illustrated who’s who of the goblin world.

This gallery of slimy portraits includes such smelly denizens of the Labyrinth as Hallow goblins, who can spit half a mile and turn their grannys into sofas; the Klutton, which lays an egg three times its size; Zitzie, the “beautiful” goblin, the contents of whose handbag strike fear in all goblins; Stench, the great cook’s assistant, who puts his whole heart into the cooking; and Foregoblins, who have the power to see into the future and must have been delighted about the publication of this book, which is at once a sumptuous and entertaining companion to the film Labyrinth and a major contribution to goblinological research.

Near fine only minor foxing and mark on the cover.