Over the years, I’ve chronicled my affection for and work within the worlds created by Jim Henson and Brian Froud here on Muddy Colors. From the official prequel novels for The Dark Crystal (which became the foundation for the Netflix series) to original works set within Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, to creating the 40th anniversary poster, and more, I’ve had the opportunity over the last 15 years to work on some amazing projects with wonderful folks.

And any chance I get to contribute a little something to those worlds is an opportunity for which I’m tremendously grateful. 

When the offer to work on a series of four interlocking covers for the Jim Henson Presents series of comics rolled along, well, nobody had to ask me twice.

BOOM! Studios, in partnership with The Jim Henson Company, is proud to bring JIM HENSON PRESENTS to life! An exciting new anthology filled to the brim with new tales set in the many worlds of Jim Henson.

Explore the far reaches of Farscape, the dangerous streets of The Goblin City, and the wacky world of Fraggle Rock with a lineup of all-star creators including Brennan Lee Mulligan, Kelly & Nicole Matthews, Aabria Iyengar, Jared Cullum, Kyla Vanderklugt, Shannon Watters, Max Sarin, Jill Tew, Daniel Bayliss, Darcie Little Badger, Danny Luckert, Christine Larsen, J.M. Lee, Nori Retherford, Corinna Bechko, Carlotta Dicataldo, Shobo, V.V Glass, Cameron Chittock, Cory Godbey, Seanan McGuire, and Countandra.

As the comics have been published (even though they released a little while back I just saw issue four still on the shelf at my local comic shop!) we’ve looked at the creation of this four piece set over these last few months, and finally, wrapping up with a look at the forth cover here.

Jim Henson’s The Storyteller was a TV series which ran in the late 1980s. It retold a collection of fairy tales and folk tales all with that particular Henson humor, charm, and puppets. The “storyteller” himself was played by the late John Hurt and each episode featured the storyteller and his dog hanging out by a fireplace telling stories. It’s the perfect set up (and a conceit which lends itself particularly well to sequential storytelling).

However, this final piece for Jim Henson Presents isn’t my first time working within the world of The Storyteller. No, that honor goes to a cover featuring a dragon, a cover of which I’m still very fond.

And actually, here on Muddy Colors a number of years ago, we took a look through another set of four interlocking covers for the Sirens series of The Storyteller comics.

And so to bring this set to close, I could think of no finer way than to bring The Storyteller back to his chair and fireplace.

Honestly, not too much left to show! I’d had an idea to incorporate a number of creatures from a few favorite episodes but time was truly against me with this one. As I recall, I did both the third (Fraggle Rock) and fourth (The Storyteller) covers at the same time, and under the good graces of my long suffering, extension granting editor.

Simply put, I drew John Hurt in a roughed up arm chair and dropped him in.

And there you have it!

This last one truly was that simple. How to do a Storyteller cover? Just draw John Hurt with a cup of tea in a chair with his dog. A little like that old “How to Draw the Tick!” comic.

Well! That’s that for this Jim Henson Presents series.

Or is it?

No! In fact, this final issue features the first Labyrinth comic that I’ve illustrated since… 2016 or so! Been a while and it was fun to get back into that world. We’ll take a closer look at this 10 page story next time.