If you are following along with the Westminster Dog Show, you’ll know that a Bearded Collie by the name of ‘Tolkien Raintree Mister Baggins‘ has taken the first prize in the 2011 Best of Herding group. After some more research, it looks like the owners were inspired to name many of their dogs after the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Pretty neat! We can’t help but think being named ‘Baggins’ helps with the judges. The Westminster Dog Show wraps up tonight on USA Network, check your local listings. [Westminster Dog Show] [ Tolkien Raintree Mister Baggins Homepage]
Category: J.R.R. Tolkien
Donato Giancola’s artwork will be familiar to many readers of TORn. His paintings have been used as the covers for many books, including the Science Fiction Book Club’s combined edition of The Lord of the Rings. Recently, he published a volume which brings together many of his Middle Earth depictions. If you haven’t yet seen Giancola’s gorgeous book Middle Earth: Visions of a Modern Myth, then you’ve missed a treat. Crammed with beautiful prints of his paintings and sketches inspired by Tolkien’s writing, the book includes fascinating comments and up close images of details from Giancola’s amazing pictures. It’s a great opportunity to see Middle Earth afresh; we know so well the images from the movies or from John Howe and Alan Lee (amongst others); but here we find well known characters and places reimagined. Giancola’s focus tends to be on faces, and he brilliantly brings to life the anguish or ecstasy of a moment as seen in a character’s eyes. His drawings of anatomy are like ancient Greek sculptures, with every muscle seen as, for example, Gollum struggles against Sam and Frodo in Emyn Muil. I especially love his ‘The Great Dragon Smaug’ and ‘Eowyn and the Lord of the Nazgul’. Ted Nasmith wrote the foreword for Visions of a Modern Myth; he writes of Giancola, ‘His art is exactingly and lovingly rendered with consummate skill, yet the end result is typically relaxed and very pleasant to the eye – no easy feat!’
Donato is a good friend to TheOneRing.net, and he was recently interviewed by another good friend of ours, George Beahm – writer of books such as The Essential J.R.R. Tolkien Sourcebook (with Colleen Doran) and Kirk’s Works (with George Barr, on the artwork of Tim Kirk). Beahm’s interview appears below. I hope it wets your appetite to see more of the stunning art of Donato Giancola.
CHESTERTOWN, MD. – Corey Olsen had a lot to say about J.R.R. Tolkien. But it seemed a pity to consign his thoughts to a scholarly journal, to be read by a few hundred fellow academics who already knew more than enough about the author of “The Lord of the Rings.”
So in spring 2007, the Washington College professor took his scholarship public, with a podcast called “How to Read Tolkien and Why” and a Web site called The Tolkien Professor.
A million downloads later, Olsen is one of the most popular medievalists in America. His unusual path to success – a smartly branded Web site and a legion of iTunes listeners – marks an alternative to the publish-or-perish tradition of scholarship on the tenure track. More..
Purchase any signed copies of The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit on Ebay recently? We hope not! Looks like the UK police are investigating a 65 year old man who was selling forged signatures of Winston Churchill, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and others. [Read More]
I blame Canada Post for my missing out on The Toast festivities a few weeks back on January 3rd. You see the folks behind the forthcoming War in the North videogame planned an event to celebrate The Professor’s birthday in unison with geeks all across the land, on January 3rd we were to raise our collective glasses and cheer before preparing to go off to war! While this event did indeed happen, I did not participate! Seems Canada Post caused a delay and I did not receive a very special package that was promised to me weeks earlier by the folks at WB Games. Well it finally did arrive, with plenty of cool goodies for me to giveaway so fear not! We shall all be going to War (in the North) very soon! Check out the awesome package and stay tuned for your chance to win War in the North goodies from WB Games and be sure to check out www.warinthenorth.com. Continue reading “War in The North Toasts The Professor”
Peter Thiel, famous for making billions off Facebook, tells SFGate.com he’s finally found “utopia” – New Zealand.
To summarize the story a bit, Mr. Thiel is a big fan of Tolkien and named his latest firm Valar Ventures:
The name of Thiel’s firm Valar Ventures comes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings universe. Thiel is a huge Tolkien fan and the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed in New Zealand. In Tolkien’s legendarium, the Valar are deities who created the world of Middle-Earth (portrayed by New Zealand in the movies) and then descended on it to help nurture its infancy and development.
Hey Peter – do you happen to have a spare million to help TORn with some server costs? 🙂 Pretty please? hah. Enjoy the rest of the article at SFGate.com. [Read More]