Return to Labryinth

About three days ago I went to a bookstore and wandered around, as I usually do, looking for something entertaining. Pretty frequently monkeys in store uniforms ran up to me and refused to accept that I was wandering around their store aimlessly looking for nothing in particular. The kept following me around and asking me if I needed assistance. I, being the anti-social hermit that I am, decided to start taking evasive measures to avoid the evil bookstore storm troopers and their lame recommendations for things they thought I would want to buy. In the process of evading the thought police of Barnes and Noble I accidentally walked into a display of mangas. Typically, I would let such a display crash to the floor and then I would stomp on it to make sure that the stupid Japanese cartoons were dead but this time something caught my eye, making me catch the falling display. I realized, in my twenty second glance at the falling display that there was a manga with a character on the front who looked EXACTLY like David Bowie, was wearing something black and probably made of leather and had a crystal ball in one hand. It was Jareth the goblin king! I quickly grabbed the manga (it made my fingers burn a little because I am allergic to manga) and saw that it was called Return to Labyrinth and was suppose to be the sequal to the movie. I then dashed to the cash register, having found something random, unexpected and cool and cranked out the $10 to buy it.

See, they’re practically mirror images of each other!!!

When I got home I cracked open the graphic novel. It is epically amazing. Basically, Toby (the baby from the movie in the 80’s) has grown up and is like 18. Throughout his entire life he has been receiving everything he has ever wished for from a mysterious source, usually at some obnoxious price that gets him in lots of trouble. For example, at the beginning of the book Toby is taking a math test and wishes there was some way he could pass. Suddenly a cheat sheet appears on his desk. He crumples it up and throws it in the trash and it reappears on his desk. He rips it into little pieces and it reappears taped on his desk. The whole time Jareth watches in owl form. Return to Labyrinth has amazing continuity from the movie, every character major, minor and extra reappears somewhere within the book. All of the things that were promised to happen in the Labyrinth did happen. For instance, Jareth (David Bowie) really has made Hoggle into the Prince of the Land of Stench (basically the ruler of the bog of eternal stench). Anyway, Toby follows a goblin who has stolen his homework into the labyrinth, he fights through the labyrinth, just like his sister Sarah did eighteen years earlier to get to the center of the labyrinth to go beyond the goblin city to the castle of the goblin king. Once he gets there, there is a big goblin party where Jareth announces that he will be replaced by his “heir” Toby. I read the whole manga in about thirty minutes, then I reread it, then I reread it again. I will probably buy the rest of the series too. I used to refer to Tokyopop as Tokyoturd, now I am conflicted. Sure they barf out loads of anime, but now one of their manga’s actually has a cool story.

Once again, I also really recommend Bowie’s music, he is iconic of the 1980’s.

Return to the Labryinth
The labyrinth movie
David Bowie mp3s