It’s amazing to me how differently artists interpret Bilbo Baggins. Last month I found these two covers and now, here’s this one. It’s not a great great depiction. First off, Bilbo is way too tall and portly, and his signature feature, the hairy feet, is missing. He looks more like John Goodman from the 1990s sitcom Roseanne. How unconvincingly he wields that sword, too.
Gollum too looks off. Of course, the Gollum from Peter Jackson movies has now become the classic one, the one most readers would expect, or a version thereof. But this creature looks like The Aztec Mummy with a hook nose. He’s also way too big, looming up from behind those distant stalactite formations.
