Pun, trifle,Lovecraftian horror, or fine art? You decide. (The Water, 1563-64, by Giuseppe Arcimbaldo)
Tag: Art and artists
Sauron, Melkor, and the Ho-yay
Tolkien March is drawing to a close. As it ends, I want to touch on the fanfic and fanart… and the slash… bursting onto the scene after the release of Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, and gathering steam through the next two releases and then Hobbit trilogy that wrapped in 2014. Not …
The Worm Ouroboros
[Reading Challenge 2018]
The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison Ballantine Books, New York, 1967 [Challenge # 48: A high fantasy] The Worm Ouroboros is one of the great granddaddies of fantasy, sandwiched between Lord Dunsany, who was an influence, and J.R.R. Tolkien, who received its influence. As such, it’s a kind of a bridge, but one that …
In Praise of Oliphaunts
Grey as a mouse, Big as a house, Nose like a snake, I make the earth shake, As I tramp through the grass; Trees crack as I pass. J.R.R. Tolkien, “Oliphaunt” Oliphaunts, or mumakil as Tolkien also called them, are one of the mythical creatures most identified with the trilogy. It’s clear they are based …
Three Editions Through Time
Three editions of the trilogy over the years. The top one is the first, unauthorized paperback version. Note that the Nazgul on the cover of The Two Towers is a pegasus and not the reptilian creature that was actually in the book. The artist got other details right, like the black-robed, faceless Nazgul, and others …
Plagiarism, Hobbit Style
Looking through my Pinterest feed for Tolkien images, I found this cover for a French edition of The Hobbit. It looked awfully familiar to me. Then I figured out where I had seen it before. Now, I wish the artist had been just a little more creative and not cribbed what is obvious, particularly as …
The Fellowship of the Ring Chinese Cover
This beautiful cover, reminiscent of Chinese jade carvings, was part of a competition by WenJing Publishing to release the trilogy for an Asian market. I like it when the books receive artistic interpretations of the country they are released in.
Smaug the Terrible
There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep; a thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of …
Der Kleine Hobbit
German edition This German cover of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit changes the title slightly to “The Little Hobbit” and pairs a bloated, toadlike, crazy-eyed Smaug with a tap-dancing Hobbit waving a top hat. The whole is enclosed in a trompe l’oeil frame with a spider crawling on the bottom, which alludes to the dwarves’ misadventures …
Tolkien Month
Sauron’s forces on the move It’s Tolkien Month here on my website! A little odd considering I have been writing mostly erotica and horror, but my roots are in SF and Fantasy. Reading E.R. Eddison’s The Worm Ouroboros, a progenitor of Tolkien’s and a probable influence, has made me appreciate the good professor even more. …