Oh, what a mess! While Skub was busy tending to the seating arrangements for his fickle guests, his fabulous three-course meal was burned to a crisp! In a panic, Skub turned to the Great Goblin Directory to find a source for takeout…

“Thank you for calling Ralph and Alph’s Gourmet To Go! Can we help you?”

“Oh, I hope so! Skub is in a pickle! I need a three course meal, lickety split! Can you do it?”

“Three courses, hm? Well, we’ll have to bring in our cousin, Gandalph, but yes, we can oblige!”

Fifteen minutes later, the promised delivery showed up at Skub’s door. There was something funny about the order, though. For each course, there were three large platters – one each in Gold, Silver and Bronze. Skub asked the delivery man why.

“Oh, that’s because for each course, only one platter is safe while the other two are poisoned.”

“Poison?! As much as Skub wishes his unpleasant guests would go away, I cannot poison them! This won’t do at all!”

“In that case,” the delivery goblin said, “you’ll have to figure out which one is safe by reading the notes attached to each platter.”

“Phew!” Skub gave a sigh of relie—

“Before you give a sigh of relief,” the messenger interrupted, “ I should warn you that between the chefs, one of them always lies, one of them always tells the truth and one of them can lie or tell the truth on a whim.”

“This is impossible!” Skub exclaimed. “My guests will surely die grisly deaths.”

“Don’t give up just yet!” the messenger said. “All of the notes on a given color tray come from the same chef. Perhaps if you study all the notes, you can figure out who’s who?”

“Hmm….” Skub pondered. “That sounds pretty tricky, but Skub knows just who to ask for help!”

So, Riddle Club members, based on the notes provided, can you help Skub figure out which color platter to serve at each course?

Soup Course

• Gold – This dish is poison.
• Silver – Gold is poison.
• Bronze — The other two dishes are poison.

Main Course

• Gold – This dish isn’t poison.
• Silver – If my dish is poison, then it won’t be in the next course.
• Bronze — This dish isn’t poison.

Desert Course

• Gold –This dish isn’t poison.
• Silver – Bronze isn’t poison.
• Bronze – Any dishes that were safe in the last course are safe again.

Comments and solution revealed on Monday. No prizes this time, but I hope you enjoy the puzzle!

I meant to have a new Riddle Club puzzle up today, but I’m a little behind, so in the meantime, here’s another preview pic from volume 4. Nothing too spoilery here — just a little aftermath from where volume 3 left off. I can’t wait to start seeing some of the polished pencil pages, how about you? The next art preview will be another character sketch from Chris’ notebook. Who will he draw, I wonder…?

Return to Labyrinth is often categorized as manga because of its publisher and format, but from a story standpoint, I like to think that it fits in with the rich tradition of fantasy comics not just from Japan, but from around the world.

As many RTL readers I’ve met are either new to comics or read primarily manga, here’s a list of some of my favorite fantasy comics series that are highly recommended to Labyrinth fans:

Fables

Fables, written by Bill Willingham and published by DC’s Vertigo imprint, is my favorite ongoing comics series. The premise, that fairy tale characters are living in exile in modern day New York City while their homelands are occupied by a dark empire, could have easily ended up a silly mess, but Willingham not only keeps a straight face, but he brings an amazing about of weight and complexity to characters whitewashed by years of residing in the Disney vault. The series starts out with a hard-boiled mystery, but give it a couple volumes and Fables becomes seriously epic, with politics, espionage, family drama, culminating in all-out war. And that’s just the start of the story! And the James Jean covers are gorgeous beyond words (see art above). With 12 volumes of the main story, a collection of side-stories and a stand-alone novel, there’s plenty of Fables to catch up with until the next volume comes out in January. (Rated for mature readers – basically PG-13)

Sandman

Neil Gaiman’s brilliant Sandman was the series that got me (and countless others) hooked on comics. It wasn’t the first comic I’d read by any measure, but it was the series that made me start exploring the format and sparked my interest in writing comics. Sandman is a tough series to sum up, but at its core, it’s about Dream of the Endless, the immortal personification of dreaming, who must rebuild and protect his kingdom, connect with his alliterative family and atone for past sins. The series blends elements of horror and high fantasy and basically wrote the style book that DC’s Vertigo imprint would follow for the next decade and beyond. Sandman can be a tough series to get into at first, with art that runs the gamut of styles and a plot full of detours, but it’s definitely worth your time. The series spawned the also wonderful Lucifer, Books of Magic and other shorter Vertigo series. (For Mature Readers – a soft R rating)

Bone

Bone is a brilliant fantasy epic that chronicles the adventures of the three Bone brothers – everyman Fone Bone, greedy Phoney Bone and happy-go-lucky Smiley Bone – who gets lost and wind up in an idyllic valley, home to simple villagers, talking animals, savage creatures and a lost kingdom. It’s alternately funny, sweet and scary with gorgeous cartooning work from creator Jeff Smith. The series was originally created in black and white over a period of 14 years and collected in 9 volumes, but now you have a choice of the “one volume edition” brick of a book that includes the full story in B&W, or the new Scholastic editions with the 9 volumes rendered in full color. Bone is so charming, it’s hard not to love. The only complaint I had with the series was having to wait months between issues, but now that the series is finished, there’s no reason not to check it out! (Recommended for readers of all ages!)

Courtney Crumrin

Like Bone, Courtney Crumrin is the work of a solo writer/artist, in this case the super-talented Ted Naifeh. The Oni Press published series shares creepy sensibilities that will appeal to fans of The Nightmare Before Christmas, but unlike many of the “goth” comics born around the same time, Courtney Crumrin never sacrifices story and grounded characters for the sake of style. Think Edgar Allen Poe meets Alice in Wonderland. I love Naifeh’s creature designs – they are terrifying without resorting to gore. There are currently four numbered volumes and two  stand-alone graphic novelettes. (Recommended for all ages. It’s basically PG.)

I’ll write up mini-reviews of more of my favorite series later. In the meantime, besides Return to Labyrinth, what fantasy comics do you enjoy?

Skub would like to extend his gratitude to everyone who helped him solve his seating conundrum. Thanks to your help, the dinner party started out without a hitch! Next, Skub needs a little assistance figuring out the menu, so tune in Wednesday for the next Riddle Club Puzzle!

There were 40 responses to last week’s puzzl, 37 of which had the correct seating arrangement. So what are those answers? Let’s figure it out together!

Lord Wumples (A) must be at the head or the foot of the table, so either 1 or 6.

Count of Crumbs (C) must be seated at an even numbered seat and the Lady Vampoozle (E), at a seat number twice his, which means that he must either be in seat 2 or 4 and she seat 4 or 8. Keep in mind that the Countess (B) will be sitting next to her husband.

Meanwhile, Duchess Wellingud (J) must sit at a corner seat and have a seat number higher than her husband (I), which means she must be seated in seat 10, 7 or 5. Also, her best friend, Mistress Bloach (G), will be sitting between the Duke and Duchess, so you can keep these three lumped as one unit while whittling things down.

Now Baron Chuff (D) must be “flanked by ladies,” of which there are 4. Mistress Bloach is wedged between her friends, the Duke and the Duchess, so really there are only 3 possibilities – the Countess, Lady Vampoozle and the Duchess.  Going back to the Count, if he must be in 2 or 4, then his wife must be in 1, 3 or 5. With the Lady in 4 or 8, that means it’s impossible for the Baron to be flanked by both of them, which means that he must have the Duchess on one side and either the Countess or the Lady on the other. Which means the string of DJGI is locked down. Since seat 4 must either be the Count or the Lady, J cannot sit at seat 5, which means she’s in seat 10 or 7.

There are two scenarios in which the above criteria still work, but if you look at them in light of the final two clues, which say that  Prince Pipsquip (F) can’t sit next to Vampoozle, Rotterdung or the Wellinguds and that Rotterdung (H) must sit as far from Duke Wellingud as possible, only one arrangement holds up:

1-G, 2-I, 3-B, 4-C, 5-F, 6-A, 7-H, 8-E, 9-D, 10-J

To select the prize winners from the 37 valid entries, I used random.org to generate 4 TRUE random numbers and counted down the list accordingly. And so, this month’s winners are:

• Grand Prize: Kendra Nunez
• Runners Up: Amy Sia Watson, Alexis K AufderHeide, Samantha Paul

Congratulations to the lucky winner, and to everyone else, thanks for entering and keep on riddling! Not every Riddle Club puzzle will have prizes, but we’ll definitely be doing prizes again soon.

All right, folks. I’m away on a mini-vacation for the weekend, but I’ll be back on Monday with the results of Skub’s Riddle Club and more. Best behavior, everyone. Go work on those halloween costumes!

-Jake

Right now Return to Labyrinth artist Chris Lie is hard at work on Chapter 2 of volume 4. He was kind enough to share this sketch of one of that chapter’s featured characters as you’ve never seen him before! Yeah, I know that just yesterday I wrote about how timeless Jareth is, but even immortals go through fresh young phases, right? More on that later. For now, just enjoy this lovely portrait!

A while back I wrote a post on the challenges of writing Jareth. As intimidating as it is to put new words into such an iconic character’s mouth, it’s honestly been a lot of fun. After all, Jareth is timeless. He’s larger than life. His lines have a certain rhythm. There’s more Jareth dialogue in volume 4 than the previous 3 volumes combined, and I feel pretty confident that Labyrinth fans old and new will read it and think, “yup, that’s Jareth, all right!”

Writing Sarah is a whole other ballgame. For one thing, Sarah isn’t a timeless fantasy construct — she’s a “real girl.” I think one of the reasons Labyrinth’s popularity has endured is that Sarah isn’t a perfect princess; we relate to her because of her all-too human imperfections. And Sarah wasn’t put into cryogenic sleep since the events of the movie, when she was 14, but rather has lived an awful lot of life. Also, whereas Jareth will always be David Bowie circa 1986, it’s not quite fair to Sarah’s character to assume that her life would stay in step with Jennifer Connelly’s. Connelly is a fabulous star and has been since her teens. She poses for magazine covers and works hard for that body. She’s also hella smart.

We don’t know a lot about Sarah’s early life or what she did following one fateful night in the Goblin Kingdom. We know that she’s the child of a broken marriage, whose mother that she idolizes was a theater actress. We know that she’s not really into boys and that she loses herself in fantasy worlds. We also know that a change happens following the events of the movie, as Sarah symbolically gives Lancelot the stuffed bear to her baby brother, a sign that she’s ready to let go of her childhood fantasies, even though she admits she still needs them.

So what happens in the 15 or so years between Labyrinth the movie and Return to Labyrinth the books? When I first started writing Return to Labyrinth, I tried to steer clear of that as much as possible. This was going to be Toby’s adventure. Originally, I had conceived of a romantic comedy subplot between Jareth the high school guidance councilor who gets roped into helping teach Drama with Sarah. (You can see elements in the totally-non-canon Goblin King’s Revenge story I posted here last year). As much fun as that would be to write, it was largely a story about putting Jareth in uncomfortable situations and didn’t really do justice to Sarah’s growth and imagination.

The one element of Sarah that stayed from the first draft was the character Moppet, who, as you know by now, is an aspect of Sarah’s dreams. The Labyrinth film is ultimately about Sarah’s relationship with her dreams; that relationship is also at the heart of Return to Labyrinth. How and why does our connection to fantasy change as we “grow up”? What does “growing up” even mean? The kernel of that theme is pretty dormant in the first two volumes, but in volume 4, it’s in full blossom.

The watery beasts under Esker and Mizumi’s control are called “Kuhlaups.” Their name is inspired by the term “jökulhlaup,” which refers to floods that burst out of glaciers. You already saw a couple of drafts with the Esker artwork, but here are the final two. The top one shows the crustacean influence that some of the Moraine Sketches had, and the bottom one is the more leonine version that stuck. Since a couple of key scenes called for watery properties, the sharp, armored look of the top one just wouldn’t work as needed.

These guys figure prominently in chapter 1 of volume 4 (hint, hint!).

Welcome, one and all, to Skub’s Riddle Club – your weekly source for riddles, puzzles and games from the Goblin Kingdom. This week Skub has a doozie of a puzzle, so as an incentive to work your way to the solution, we’re giving away PRIZES! Yup. Here’s what we’ve got:

• Grand Prize – A signed set of Return to Labyrinth volumes 1-3, + 3 bonus volume of manga from Tokyopop.
• Runners up (x3) — A volume of Return to Labyrinth + 1 bonus volume of manga from Tokyopop.

So without further ado, here’s this week’s puzzle! Read more…

Official Labyrinth merch is pretty limited, what with a pair of action figures, a handful of plush toys and the occasional T-shirt. But thanks to etsy, you don’t have to attend the Labyrinth of Jareth to get handmade and one-of-a-kind Labyrinth swag. With a disclaimer that none of these Labyrinth goods are “official” and that availability could change at a moment’s notice, here’s a survey of what’s up for offer on Etsy right now:

I’ll start with the plushies since I’ve got a soft spot for soft things.

I already own the licensed Didymus plushie, but this hand-made version, crafted from the finest materials, puts him to shame:

Read more…