On this day a year ago, principal photography began in Wellington on the Lord of Rings film trilogy. What a ride it’s been so far! We’ll have more on this later.

John Cook has taken ink to paper again and wants you folks to help him out.

Hey, Xoanon, it’s John Cook here, the cartoonist who draws the Fraud of the Rings cartoon parody of LOTR.

Just letting you know we’re doing another comic strip parody of Lord of the Rings at the Sci-Fi Movie Cartoon Contest. This one features a cartoon depiction of Frodo asking Gandalf why he wears all grey. You, the reader get to write Gandalf’s response! Check it out or submit your own punchlines for Gandalf here.

Huancry sent us a review of Tom Shippey’s new book on JRRT, “Tolkien, Author of Century.”

OK, it’s not available yet through Amazon, though I believe it is in the UK. Check it out at the shop
UPDATE thanks to MP:
The Shippey book is available at chapters

This hobbit’s been keeping a close eye on the set at Wingate, in Wellington:

“there is quite a bit of construction underway at Wingate. Part of a wall complete with arches has been erected. All about the set are bits of wall, stairs, arches etc, made of timber frames covered in polystyrene blocks painted black. The set looks like it will be much larger than any other set that has been erected at this site. I wonder if this set will be part of Minas Tirith? We wonderssssssess, yess we doesss.”

Thanks for that!

The people over at Tol Galen got to go up to Edoras for the day and meet Peter Jackson and the cast, and you can read their wonderful report here!