#Brian Froud: Books

[pendragaryen]

From "Jim Henson's Labyrinth - The Ultimate Visual History" Part 2

[godzilla-reads]

🐸 Good Faeries/ Bad Faeries by Brian Froud

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I meant to read Froud’s book “Faeries” first since that is his definitive collection of Faerie lore, but I acquired this one first and I was too impatient to wait. Anyway! This lovely and fun book is filled to the brim with Froud’s art and thoughtful descriptions as he brings life to the faeries around him, you, and me.

Particularly, I liked the Frog Queen the best, although I often see her counterpart- the Toad Queen- in my own yard.

[fistfuloflightning]

Cold be hand and heart and bone and cold be sleep under stone: never more to wake on stony bed, never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.

—Fog on the Barrow-Downs

Another challenging prompt, this time from @for-the-writing-artist! (some inspo came from the Niki Sanders Theme, just the right amount of creepy)

[a-ramblinrose]

  “Nobody saw the owl, white in the moonlight, black against the stars, nobody heard him as he glided over on silent wings of velvet. The owl saw and heard everything.

  He settled in a tree, his claws hooked on a branch, and he stared at the girl in the glade below. The wind moaned, rocking the branch, scudding low clouds across the evening sky. It lifted the hair of the girl. The owl was watching her, with his round, dark eyes.”  ― A.C.H. Smith, Labyrinth: A Novel Based on the Jim Henson Film

[rachelillustrates]

My top 7 Faerie stories/worlds atm 🦋

**Note, I am super dupes aware that I haven't read/watched everything, so please feel free to reblog/comment with recommendations!**

Faerie is the pulse of my heart, and my mind/spirit/etc. spends a LOT of time thinking about it, SO here's the most resonant of depictions of the realm/faeries themselves in my current opinion (and why).

(And not in any particular order:)

Elfhame, @hollyblack 's "Folk of the Air" series and all related books

Arda, Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and all related adaptations

"Suitor Armor" by @thepurpah

Studio Ghibli's take on spirits in Japanese folklore

Brian and Wendy Froud's take on Faerie

"Fraggle Rock"

"Tock the Gnome," by myself!

Thoughts:

(Art by Rovina Cai, from "How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories")

I feel very much that Holly Black gets the lushness and richness of Faerie, plus the trickery of it, and that level of dangerous beauty - what attracts humanity to it, etc. How everything is in extremes, too, but also how parts of it echo the human experience - both in terms of courts, but also in terms of the heart, and the emotional impact of intense circumstances and intense feelings.

I am, admittedly, not all caught up yet since I haven't read her earlier works, but of course I recommend starting with "The Cruel Prince" and reading forward from there (the more recent "Stolen Heir Duology" having an extra special place in my esteem)!

(Also special shoutout to the fact that there are Nisse - Gnomes! - in the recent books, AND that her take on Redcaps is absolutely Orcish 💚)

(Also also, cw: Changelings. They can be a triggering/upsetting subject, considering how our concept of them as humans seems to have come about. She does make pretty heavy use of them, but not in the ways that one might expect, and always from a very emotionally-centered space - not a humans-abusing-potential-fae space.)

So, Tolkien - yes, I am including the world of his works in this because even though he considered them religious and specifically-denominational, he took SO MUCH inspiration from folklore and faerie tales (do not even get me started on what got edited out of "The Silmarillion" istg) that Arda is not wholly Christian, from my Faerie-worshiping queer-ass faerie perspective thankyouverymuch. Not to mention what is being done in fandom with the faerie-races, especially the Dwarves and the Hobbits, AND what recent adaptations are opening up with the Orcs!! Obviously, his take on Faerie is a much more literally-grounded reality - they exist in the Earth-based world (as if Faerie has bled into what we expect Earth to be), they have magic (at least the Elves and Dwarves do) but it's both somehow super ethereal and super physical at once. And divinely connected, since the biggest magic in Middle-earth (or any part of Arda) comes from the lesser Gods - the Valar, and the Maiar who serve under them as well as from Big Sky Daddy Eru, but we're not talking about him right now. So that, to me, really speaks to the spiritual nature of Faerie too - which is always always always personally interesting to me, and Jrrt's take on the fae was absolutely foundational in my budding concept of them, before I even really thought about who they are in a conscious way.

I don't know where to recommend starting, since I got into the world through the Jackson films, first, and I wouldn't change my experience for anything because it's given me SO much. But in fandom, shoutout to the works of @conkers-thecosy (read her fics here!) as well as "A Long List of Happy Endings" by vicious_summer and "The Mushroom Mine" series by @chrononautintraining for Dwarf Stuff - and "Splint" by HelenaMarkos for Orc Stuff. Plus, as much as I know it's divisive, "Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" is - again - doing wonders about the Orcs AND doing very well by the Dwarves too, in my opinion, showing them as a fully realized and thriving people (though Dwarf women should still have beards, Amazon!! And there seems to be some confusion around how the name of Durin functions...)!! Available to stream on Prime, here.

"Suitor Armor" takes place in a world that appears very similar to medieval Earth, and as such the worldbuilding itself doesn't feel very specifically Faerie - yet. However, with the main character having significant ties to the fae, and with the story still having space to explore their culture once the tale takes the characters there, I have faith that we are gonna see more of this take on Faerie specifically soon. In the meantime, what we have seen so far - how faerie magic works, how they relate to each other, etc. - rings true for me, and is lovely to behold, especially in the face of the tragedy around their circumstances in the Big Plot.

Free to read here (and coming to bookshelves in 2025!!).

As for Studio Ghibli - Miyazaki's take on the spirits of Japanese folklore - which are absolutely Faerie - was SO formative for me growing up. I don't have anything else to say about that except that he's right!!

I recommend "Princess Mononoke," "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro," particularly. All available to stream on Max right now (but buying physical media is better, and they're very likely available to rent other places, too).

Brian and Wendy Froud's work has, of course, also been absolutely formative for me - especially when I started getting into Faerie properly. Their work doesn't require much commentary either - they're just correct 💗 Nothing I've experienced has ever contradicted what I've read in their books, and I feel like their work really, really gets the energy of the fae and the liminality of their existence. And that there is kindness, and light, as well as danger.

I recommend "Trolls" and "Faeries' Tales," to start with, and of course the quintessential "Faeries" by Brian Froud and Alan Lee, which started it all.

(Also, considering what's below, special honorary shoutout to their work on "The Dark Crystal." Definite overlap there and absolutely counts.)

Obviously there's some crossover with The Muppets here, considering they come from the same studio, BUT if we're looking at just "Fraggle Rock" on its own - absolutely. Though a very different take than those mentioned above, if you're looking for the whimsy and delight at the heart of the fae, the Fraggles have it.

Both the original series and the reboot are currently available to stream on AppleTV.

Okay, and my own! What I'm doing with the world of "Tock the Gnome" is a little bit different - again, we're looking at a realm that isn't free from some of the physical bounds we find on Earth - but in its vast history there is Faerie at its purest, and the characters are on a Big Quest that will be instrumental in restoring the realm to what one would expect of Faerieland (all wrapped up in a body-positive, sapphic-presenting queer romance, btw). My focus is on Gnomes and Orcs, in particular, since the fact that they're also fae is a big part of my message. Recognizing that, as well as recognizing the importance of connectedness between people and the balance of that and personal sovereignty, and how damage to those things might impact the whole of a magical realm.

All pages available to read for free here, across several platforms (with print issues available here).

🦋💗🦋👏👏

[misforgotten2]

A book you very likely don’t have on your shelf #629

Cover by Brian Froud -- 1982

[iweon]

What a great story!

Labyrinth, Jim Henson, Terry Jones, 1986.

[wehavewords]

“Voices in the forest tell of dark and twisted enchantments—as dark and twisted as the roots and grasping branches of the trees themselves. Even the most gnarled tree is eloquent in the telling of its own tale.”

Brian Froud

[thedepartmentofdiscoveries]

Dark Crystal - Mystic (1976) by Brian Froud

[lordsofthecrystal]

Excerpt from The Dark Crystal: The Ultimate Visual History, featuring scans from The Crystal, a rare concept booklet for The Dark Crystal (1982). ✧

[modelartist-demri]

I remember one of Demri’s friends stating that she used to walk around with a suitcase full of books. Do you know what books she had in her collection?

I really don't know for sure, I know she loved poetry and fantasy (like fairy tales), and that British illustrator Brian Froud was her favourite artist.

Sorry I couldn't tell you more!

[pendragaryen]

From "Jim Henson's Labyrinth - The Ultimate Visual History" Part 1

[godzilla-reads]

Did I buy this book of Irish Myths and Legends solely because the cover art is by Brian Froud? Yeah, I admit I did, but it was only like $3 so it’s ok.

[gombln]

If you DONT know who Brain Froud is AND you still want to be friends, may I present you his magnificent artwork:

[dreamingnaiad]

"In ancient Greece, the word eidōla meant image, and eidōlon meant soul. Image, then, was a way of understanding and envisioning the soul. This is a book of what I call "imaginosis," or knowing through image—a book of images designed to spark self-revelation."

— Brian Froud, Good Faeries/Bad Faeries

[mollyringle]

The two currently existing Eidolonia books are together at last! My print copies of Ballad for Jasmine Town have arrived, and they look gorgeous next to their buddies (Lava Red Feather Blue and the faery artwork of Brian Froud).

The arrival of print copies, in the past, has SOMETIMES meant that online booksellers will start shipping the paperback before its official release date (June 4, 2024, in the case of Ballad for Jasmine Town) if you order it now. We aren't big-name enough to stop them. And hey, honestly, if you want it now and you get it now, I'm happy with that, so give it a try.