Return to Labyrinth Manga – Story by Jake T. Forbes, Art by Chris Lie, Published by Tokyopop.

Story

The Return to Labyrinth manga takes place several years after the events of the film. After a brief flashback from the movie, we meet an older Tobey (he’s now supposedly 13 years old). Toby is portrayed as a troubled teenager who is interested in acting, has pretty bad luck, gets into trouble a lot and has issues with his mother. His sister Sarah (who is in her 30s) isn’t a big part of his life – and is strangely missing from most of the story. Writer Jake T. Forbes has recently stated that Sarah will play a larger roll in additional volumes.

The first chapter of volume one follows the film in several ways – mainly by mirroring Sarah’s issues with her parents, herself and Toby. By playing up Toby’s problems, it makes things easier for Jareth to lead him into the Labyrinth. When Jareth The Goblin King finally shows up, the story really begins to feel more like the film!

After entering the Labyrinth and The Goblin Kingdom, Toby meets several new characters – such as the faerie ‘Hana’ and the furry creature ‘Stank’. Writer Jake T. Forbes has balanced these introductions with old favorites from the film, such as the oddities of the Labyrinth and it’s unusual cast of characters.

Thankfully, some of my favorite characters Hoggle, Sir Didymus (with Ambrocious) and Ludo begin to make their appearances. There’s even the goblins with the bitey poles in the background! Jareth pops up here and there, which makes it feel a lot like the film too. There are several points in the story that really connected with the film – all involving either Sir Didymus, Jareth or Toby. Unfortunately, there are several points where I was pulled out of the story entirely (as I mentioned before – Labyrinth is one of my favorite films).

The main scene I was the most disappointed with is a scene at the ball (towards the end of volume one) when Toby meets Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus for the first time. When they realize that Sarah never mentioned any of them, Ludo says “Sawah Friend. Sawah…Gone.” That really depressed me. Actually, in the panel before, Hoggle says “I guess she just…didn’t need us.” That seemed really sad and unlike Hoggle’s character from the film. I guess that’s just a little bit of ‘deconstruction’ that the writer felt needed to be added. After that, the story perks up again.

Art

The cover art, by Kouyu Shurei is truly amazing. She’s really captured the spirit of The Goblin King Jareth and his Labyrinth. The cover also provides nice distinctive portrait of Toby, the main character of the story. The warmth of the colors remind me of the Labyrinth theatrical poster and the level of detail is simply amazing.

I was expecting the cover to be a preview of the interior art. Once inside, I quickly realized that this wasn’t the case. Instead, the artwork is by Chris Lie, whose art is a loose combination of western and manga style. While a very competent artist, I was expecting a much tighter manga style. I initially picked on every little element that looked wrong, but after re-reading the manga, I’ve decided that the artwork takes some time to warm up to. I still have some problems with ‘grown-up’ Sarah though. Why does she look like a slightly hipper version of Velma from Scooby-Doo?

Character Design

The character design left me with mixed feelings. While it’s great to see old friends again, I was kinda distracted by some of the interpretations of familiar characters (as I said before). Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen the film so many times – or that I’m looked at Brian Froud’s art so much!

Likes:

• The Goblin King Jareth. He looks like he stepped directly out of the film and into the manga.
• The new characters such as the faerie Hana and her trusty steed Stank.
• The goblin/human character Moppet – she wears a masquerade ball mask and her identity is unknown, which is pretty interesting!
• The world of Labyrinth. The Goblin city and kingdom look great!

Dislikes:

• Sarah. She is unrecognizable with her short hair and glasses. I was expecting her to look like a mature version of herself (or actress Jennifer Connelly)!
• Hoggle looks weird to me – I’m not sure why. Sorry!
• The goblins. I think they look too ’soft’. They’re like this weird Ralph Bakshi style mixed with a tiny little bit of Tim Burton. Missing ingredient? Brian Froud!

Conclusion

Overall I enjoyed the story but was disappointed by several elements. The biggest disappointment was the absence of Sarah throughout the story (and her character design). What could have been an excellent opportunity to include both brother and sister in an epic adventure ends up something a little less epic (so far – I realize there’s more story to tell). Since we hardly knew Toby in the Labyrinth film (he was a baby), I have a disconnect to his ‘grown-up’ (13) character. As a baby (and Sarah’s brother) it was easy to feel sympathetic to him in the movie – he was helpless and constantly in danger (of being turned into a goblin). In the manga, he seems to be able to take care of himself – even with the bad luck.

There are several good things in volume one. The story was fresh and pretty exciting. It’s interesting to pick up the story years after the events of the film took place. It’s also nice to revisit old friends again. Jareth is awesome. Toby has potential. Overall, I think even with the hits and misses of Tokyopop’s Return to Labyrinth manga, the story kept me interested. I think I’ll follow Toby, Jareth the Goblin King and company further into the Labyrinth and see how all of this turns out for them!