After receiving multiple requests, we are finally making our Comic-Con 2012 ‘OBEY’ shirts available for online purchase. The popularity of this shirt was a surprise to us all! After selling out last Thursday, we begged our shirt producer to rush another 100+ shirts to arrive at Comic-Con by Saturday afternoon. Those sold out just as quickly by Sunday and ultimately left a lot of con-goers empty-handed. So we are happy to offer them to our entire online audience for a limited time. The shirt comes in three colors: Black, Blue and Red. We are also now offering Women’s V-Neck options. Shirts are $20US with flat rate shipping of $5 US and $15 International. In case you were wondering, proceeds from our shirt sales go directly to site expenses and our events. TheOneRing.net is not for profit with a 100% volunteer staff. We regularly donate any excess monies to international literacy charities. Please help support TheOneRing.net and our efforts by snagging yourself a cool shirt! (And yes, our other shirts should be online shortly!) [Place your Order]

 

So over the last 24 to 48 hours, there’s only been about half a billion articles posted across the interwebs about the Hall H presentation. Then add an equal number of video interviews that Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen and Richard Armitage have been doing about The Hobbit.

Talk about feast or famine!

So without further ado, here’s a round-up of the latest ones, and a bit of a summary for many of the articles to help you decide what to read or watch.

Bootnote: big props to everyone who has been sending in links to spymaster at theonering dot net — you’re all ace! And be sure to drop us a line if you think you have a scoop about the production — we’d love to hear from you!

Now updated! with press conference video footage!

SPOILER WARNING!
Continue reading “TORn’s ultimate Comic-Con 2012 round-up!”

If you’ve not heard of Nimpentoad, it’s a wonderful children’s fantasy story by Henry Herz and his young sons Josh and Harrison. It introduces young readers to stories that feed the imagination, taking them to a world fraught with adventure and incredible creatures. At the same time, it conveys important lessons about real-life issues such as bullying and teamwork, as well as the importance of leadership, selfless care for others, resourcefulness, and bravery.

The authors were at Comic-Con 2012 where TORn gave away a few copies of the book to con attendees. Here are a few photos of the young Josh and Harrison having fun on the Comic-Con floor — the shot with Richard Taylor is priceless!

[Photo gallery] | [Our review]

Those who watched TORn’s live Comic Con HobbitCon feed might have Weta Workshop’s Greg Broadmore busy signing copies of his a graphic novel at the Weta Booth.

As a fan of Greg Broadmore’s Dr. Grordbort I thought I wouldn’t mind finding more about it. It turns out that he was signing his new goofy Dr. Grordbort graphic novel called “TRIUMPH: Unnecessarily Violent Tales of Science Adventure for the Simple and Unfortunate” (quite a mouthful).  Published in hard-cover, it contains two gloriously illustrated stories following the misadventures of the brutish (British) space hero Lord Cockswain.

 

More tongue-in-cheek (and, warning, a trifle crude) retro/steampunk space action after the break:

Continue reading “Dr Grordbort: the misadventures of Lord Cockswain”

Given the awe-inspiring miniatures and “bigatures” used for The Lord of the Rings, many of TORn’s members have been questioning (some with a pang of longing!) the decision to do away with miniature photography for The Hobbit, speculating the use of 3D may have had something to do with it.

Whilst poring over the numerous press interviews and Q&As conducted with Peter Jackson over the course of this weekend, we found the answer via Collider.com in PJ’s response to the question of what the biggest advances in technology have been since The Lord of the RingsHe says:

The technology that advanced the most, in the last 10 or 12 years, is really the fact that we did a lot of miniature shooting on The Lord of the Rings. All the big architectural structures of Middle Earth were really miniatures, some of them quite large. But, you’re limited to what you can do with a miniature because you literally have to have a big camera that has to sweep past it, so you can’t get too close to it and the detail doesn’t hold up too well, if you do. 

This time around, there are no miniatures. It’s all done with CGI.  Everything that we need to build, from a miniature point of view, we build as a CG miniature. I can now swoop in, over rooftops and through doorways. I can do things that I never could have dreamt of doing with the miniatures. For me, that’s actually one of the most profound differences. 

Our own Cliff “Quickbeam” Broadway got the chance to have a few words with Richard Armitage in the Hall H press session. Armitage read The Hobbit as a young child of seven, and (among other things) spoke about the responsibility that comes with taking on a role in a universe with such depth that it feels like it could have existed.

Choice quote: “…and then actually putting the costume on and trying to make that character live and breath and walk and talk. It’s like you’re given this responsibility to every other person who’s read them, who’s reading the books for the first time or who has read them when they were seven. That’s the responsibility — and you have to own that for everyone.”