Sunday, January 15, 2012

Old School Art: JRR Tolkien + A World View of The Hobbit

Is it just me, or does Bilbo look a bit like JRR himself in this drawing by Tolkien?

Some of you may have seen some of these (below,) but here's a few links to Tolkien-related art posts from the recent past, for some added insight into the history of "old school" RPG art.

Art of The Hobbit: Never Before Seen Drawings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The original edition of The Hobbit included 20 or so drawings by Tolkien, but he actually created more than 100!

Middle Earth: Where the wilder things are.
A 1960s edition of The Hobbit was almost illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

Hobbit covers uncovered.
A nice collection of covers of various editions of The Hobbit published from 1937 to 2007.

By Tove! These are cool!
Pictures from the 1962 Swedish publication of The Hobbit by Tove Jansson.

Gollum globetrotters.
Illustrator Carson Ellis has put together a nice collection of drawings of Gollum from around the world.

3 comments:

  1. very nice links.

    Always liked Tolkein's watercolor artwork.
    ... to the extent that I sold-back my 1982 paperbacks and replaced them with some UK hardbacks (1991 Harper Collins), all with dust-jacket art by Tolkein.

    These are a nice modern version of the set.

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  2. Follow-up:
    I was disappointed (following my first post above) to find that the Harper Collins editions re-typeset the text and redrew the maps for their hardback edition of Lord of the Rings.

    But today's deliver from Amazon put the final nail in their coffin.
    Houghton Mifflin's 70th anniversary edition of 'The Hobbit' is absolutely phenomenal.

    I've been keeping my Houghton Mifflin LOTR hardbacks (which are photo-offset from the 1967 Allen & Unwin second edition) for their awesome fold-out maps, and now I am very glad that I did.

    So "out" go the Harper Collins books (despite their JRRT dust-jacket art), and I get some precious shelf space back.

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