This week’s Friday Fantasy focuses on one of my most favorite influences: Brian Froud, who was behind the design of my favorite movie growing up, Labyrinth. Except I was always annoyed that the one appearance of fairies in that movie was so short! And Hoggle was fumigating them! If you’ve seen Labyrinth, did you ever notice that Jareth mistakenly calls Hoggle Hogwart at one point? This was way before Harry Potter came out.

His were the first illustrations that really inspired me to start drawing fairies, too. I loved how real and earthy the fae in his drawings seemed. The first book I got of his was his paperback “Faeries” way back in the 1990s. I loved that book forever, until it finally gave out and pages started falling out of it. Then I got the 25th anniversary edition, but I still kept the old, tattered one. I still look through it often, and every time I do notice new, glorious details mixed in with the familiar ones.

This month I’ve been reviewing chapters of my upcoming Call of Sunteri audiobook, and there’s a scene during Penny‘s narration where I couldn’t help but think of this Froud illustration:

Azi is trapped in the dreaming in the darkness, and she stumbles on a mysterious group of drained, fallen fae who are desperate for her help.

Hearing this narrated with all the different voices gave me such a thrill! I can’t wait for you to listen to the audio book, which is coming this spring! In the meantime, you can read Call of Sunteri here, and listen to the Call of Kythshire audiobook here!