A reader's review
I (finally) bought this book, just this morning.
I was greatly disappointed when I read the introduction, in which Terry Jones explains how Froud discovered a 60-million-year-old pot which led him to an ancient chest filled with drawings of goblins by a goblin, drawings which Froud used as a basis for his own work. (I'm assuming this is the introduction from the original 1986 edition, but I've never seen that book so I can't say for sure.) I am tired of the tongue-in-cheek pretend-that-this-stuff-is-real approach to books of this sort (perhaps best exemplified by Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book). It has just worn thin for me, and since this book is explicitly related to a movie, I was expecting some comments on how Froud became involved with the film, how the drawings were turned into puppets, etc.--exactly the kind of thing, in fact, that can be found in the afterword at the end of the book. I wish I had read that first. The introduction is a farce that isn't nearly as funny as the author seems to think it is; the afterword is a sensible, play-it-straight reminisence. The afterword does not go into great detail--it's only the lower halves of five pages--but I appreciate it even so.
There are 62 plates in the central portion of the book. Each plate is a full-page illustration showing one or two goblins; the facing page gives a brief story about or biography of the goblin(s). These stories/biographies follow along the same sort of path as the introduction: pretending this is all real with lots of jokes and humor thrown in. Personally I think much of the humor is weak and gets old pretty quickly, but humor is subjective, so you can make up your own mind about that. You can (usually) view the goblin descriptions as giving backstories to a bunch of the minor goblins sprinkled throughout the movie, and I would have liked them if they hadn't tried so hard to be funny. The more they went for cheap jokes, the less I felt they were related to the movie.
But, let's face it: you don't buy a book like this for the text. You buy it for the pictures. And pictures it has, lots and lots of sketches and pen drawings (those 62 plates) as well as beautiful paintings added in here and there, including paintings of the Hat Man, Sir Didymus, and those two shield-guys who have dog-heads at the top and bottom standing in front of the which-way doors. The book has 154 pages, and nearly each one has some artwork on it (even the descriptions of the 62 plates usually include some weird sketch at the bottom). So, basically, if you like Froud's work you will enjoy the book.
The artwork added to this edition is (I presume) that which accompanies the afterword. This includes drawings of goblins dressed up for the ball, humans dressed up for the ball with goblin masks, and an apparently early version of the Labyrinth itself, as well as--my favorite from the entire book--a two-page painting of the young-woman-who-would-be-Sarah holding a little white mask while sitting next to this large goat-headed bust that is looking at her (angrily? threateningly? curiously? irritably?) with one eye.
Personally I will enjoy this book best by reading the afterword and then looking at all the marvelous pictures, totally ignoring the text describing the individual goblins. The introduction and goblin descriptions I can view as a kind of secondary book unfortunately taking up space in the primary book.
There are no photographs (screen shots, movie stills, publicity photos, behind-the-scenes shots) in this book.
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