I was cleaning out the basement this Spring Break and was confronted with the fact that I purchased the Shrek 2 Art Book from Goodwill for like, $5.

Let’s have a look, shall we?

First and foremost, apparently they didn’t have enough content so they straight up included concepts and stuff from the first Shrek film as well as Shrek 4D (which I didn’t know was a thing prior to looking through this).

I’m not sure why any of this was even vaguely necessary.

Anyways, further proof that they straight up lacked any and all actual content to put into this art book is the fact that there are a bunch of quotes and asides, as though the Shrek cast were real actors.

I’m not sure who they were advertising this book to? Because like, the people who normally buy art books are like…people who want to enjoy the art as an art form? This isn’t some kind of trashy tabloid wannabe?

There’s an entire segment at the back of the book that is devoted to ‘exclusive’ character facts, again, as though this is some sort of unofficial guide book that nobody asked for.

I am really concerned about how Shrek does not have an astrological sign. If this was really clever I’d say this was an allusion to the premise of the fourth film? But I really, really doubt it. Instead I would rather believe that Shrek is an eternal eldritch god of some sort.

The Sound of Music jokes are pretty funny, but again, not what I’d have bought this book at store price for.

ANYWAYS.

There are entire pages devoted to straight up screencaps, put up in the old tokyopop animanga style (which was awful, even when it was intended to be read that way). 

Again, who is their audience?????

Anyways I’ll move onto the actual art, which is what I’d hope to see a lot of in an artbook.

It’s…a very, very mixed bag.

The best parts of it are always the set design/prop design, which were obviously done with a lot of enthusiasm by somebody.

And I know that these films are collaborative ventures with a lot of different artists and styles, but it’s still super jarring that this:

Is two pages away from this:

And maybe I’d forgive some of this lackluster art if there hadn’t been VERY LITTLE ART AT ALL. Most of the book was stills from the film, character asides, and other space filler. Makes me wonder if maybe Dreamworks decided the franchise was a mistake after all, and decided to burn the archives.

Anyways, this has been a very cursed post, thank you coming to my TED talk, and since you’ve made it thus far I shall now inflict this upon you like the godless heathen I am:

I’m never giving up this book, y’all.