Voronwe the Faithful – attorney, forum member and resident advisor on the Tolkien vs. New Line lawsuit reports:

“As I predicted, New Line has filed a new demurrer to the First Amended Complaint, challenging the revamped Fraud cause of action, along with a Motion to Strike punitive damages. No hearing date yet, but I’m sure that it will be soon.”

Not up to date on the demurrers and complaints? You can find Voronwe’s previous update on the latest Tolkien Family move here and/or check out the great article Clearing up Misconceptions Regarding the Tolkien vs. New Line Lawsuit
he wrote for us in June.

Pauline BaynesThanks to Ringer Diedye for the heads up on this article in The Guardian:

It was by chance, in 1948, that samples from the portfolio of the designer and illustrator Pauline Baynes, who has died aged 85, came to the attention of JRR Tolkien. At that time Tolkien was famous for just one book, his children’s novel, The Hobbit, which had been published to great acclaim 11 years earlier. The medieval style of some of Baynes’s drawings were ideally suited for Tolkien’s Farmer Giles of Ham, which he had also written before the second war, but which was only to be published in 1949. Baynes produced pen and ink drawings and three coloured plates, which Tolkien humorously maintained reduced his text to a “commentary”.

Read the full article at the Guardian website. [Read More]

Ringer Diedye has posted another wonderful FLASHBACK in our forum detailing the events that took place in the Tolkien universe between July 27th and August 2nd. This is a weekly feature that Diedye posts in the forum, so if there is ever a time we don’t post it on the homepage of TORn, make sure to check the Main board in our forums. Click on the link below to transported in time!

Continue reading “Tolkien Flashback – July 27 – Aug 2”

Pauline BaynesTheOneRing.net is saddened today by the loss of a talented artist in the fantasy realm: Pauline Baynes. Forum member N.E. Brigand alerted us to the following story:

Wayne Hammond reports the death of Baynes at her home in Surrey. Pauline Baynes was the original illustrator of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series, as well as of Tolkien’s Farmer Giles of Ham (1948), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book (1962), and Smith of Wootton Major (1967).

Follow the link for the original message from Mr. Hammond. [Read More] [Wikipedia Entry]

Thanks again to Voronwe_the_Faithful for posting another update on the Tolkien vs. New Line Lawsuit on our message boards: The plaintiffs filed a First Amended Complaint last Monday (which I believe was the last day for them to do so). They have dropped the fiduciary duty cause of action (as expected), but they have asserted new allegations to support the fraud cause of action. They added more specific claims as to how they contend that New Line misrepresented the amount of expenses that it had in order to avoid paying the royalties due. And they somewhat clarified their contention as to how they relied on these misrepresentations to their detriment. Undoubtedly New Line will again file a demurrer to the fraud cause of action. I would say it is about a 50/50 chance that the judge will sustain it this time. Meanwhile, the likelihood of a settlement continues to slip away.