Re: The General Tolkien News Thread

[halfwise]

Yes Elthir, I think a gNOME thread is appropriate. Not sure if you have ever started a thread before, would you like to do the honors?

[Elthir]

Gno thanks

I couldn't resist!

[Amarië]

Gnew thread made.

What say thee, good folks? Should we move/copy the posts from here to there? Maybe copy or quote a selected few.

[halfwise]

Yes, we can move some other.

[malickfan]

Apparently Ted Nasmith is working on an art book of his career:

https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=36189

Not strictly Tolkien related as he has done much other work besides, but Nasmith has a huge portfolio of Tolkien pieces stretching back decades (most nostably including  providing artwork for many of the official Tolkien Calenders and illustrating several editions of The Silmarillion) and the involvement of Harper Collins sugests the Tolkien connection may be the main selling point, he's one of my favourite Tolkien illustrators and I've wanted such a book for ages, so fingers crossed this project goes ahead soon.

(Nasmith was asked by Peter Jackson to work as a concept artist on the LOTR trilogy but was unable to accept the offer due to other commitments at the time, but you can still see his influence in the designs of both the PJ trilogies, I think I read somewhere he may be acting as a creative consultant on the Amazon show as well. Nasmith has been active in Tolkien fandom/illustration for decades but dosen't seem to have quite the recognition of Alan lee/John Howe)

[malickfan]

A previously unseen text by Tolkien is to be released next year:

https://www.tolkienguide.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=4292&start=0

http://kalimac.blogspot.com/2021/11/tolkien-studies-supplement-announcement.html

The editor of this text commented further on this thread:


http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=19520

Now that it's officially public, I can talk about what's in it in a bit more detail. This is the third and last of the 'synoptic' time-schemes Tolkien made, in other words using parallel columns to keep track of his various groups of characters. They wind up looking something like calendar pages, grids of boxes. This version, which I have dubbed S3, postdates the completion of the story. That fact I think is important in understanding its nature- it's not a 'working' document, in which we can see him developing his ideas as with the drafts in HME, but more in the nature of a 'reference' document like the Appendices, of which impulse it really was a part, although it was not I believe intended for publication but rather as groundwork for published material.

The first two pages (one leaf), written on 13-inch lined paper in the normal manner, are a linear time-scheme of the story from Hobbiton to the entry into Lorien. The next six (three leaves) use the same paper but are oriented landscape-fashion and divided into columns for the dramatis personae (these change constantly as needed), with a row for each date, January 15 through March 7. The next page, the ninth, followed suit; but it dissolved into a welter of alterations, strikethroughs, insertions, directional arrows and ultimately became such a chaotic mess that Tolkien discarded it (it was found separately in the archives) and replaced it. From this point he used blank pages from exam booklets, his usual medium for drafting. As so often, what had started as a "final" copy had become mere rough work. (It's also possible though that he simply ran out of the other paper!). The new pages 9-11 continue the multicolumn time-scheme through the fall of Sauron on March 25. The verso of 11 was left blank (for now), and 12-14 return to portrait linear mode, there being no need for multiple columns, until Sam's return to Bag End on 6 October 1421. At some time, I am inclined to think much later in around 1954 while working on 'The Great Years,' Tolkien jotted some Appendix B-style entries on the back of p.11, all concerned with global events after the fall of the Dark Tower.

There then follow far more than 15 pages of my own blathering about the above, and an ungodly number of footnotes. The blathering actually covers much more than just this document, because I found myself for better or worse describing the development of all three 'synoptic' chronologies, and their interrelationship to the development of the narrative itself. This applies even to S3: although the story was 'finished,' making S3 caused Tolkien to completely overhaul the week leading up to the Pelennor, and accordingly rewrite all the many, many threads converging on Minas Tirith.

And then there's the matter of converting his calendar post facto from our modern calendar to Shire Reckoning.......

Not a major release like The Nature Of Middle-earth (the editor has elsewhere estimated it will run to roughly 70 pages in length, including his notes/commentary etc) but it does sound interesting, IIRC Hammond and Scull quoted/reference these writings in their book The Lord Of The Rings: A Readers Companion.

[malickfan]

Ted Nasmith has confimed he is illustrating a new edition of the book The Complete Guide to Middle-earth :

https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienbooks/comments/r3nbip/ted_nasmith_confirmed_the_new_edition_of_the/

As I said above, I'm a huge fan of Nasmith's illustrations so will definitely get a copy of this, it's been out of print since 2003 and previously owned copies of that edition often sell for £100+ online, so this is great news for collectors on a small budget.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ I think one of the reasons Nasmith isnt as well received is whilst his landscapes are superb his people and figures are, well not his strong point I would say}}

[malickfan]

{{ I think one of the reasons Nasmith isnt as well received is whilst his landscapes are superb his people and figures are, well not his strong point I would say}}

Yeah I can see that point of view, though oddly thats actually one of the charms about his artwork for me, I prefer the more retro/heightended fantasy approach he has and his illustrations are more focussed on mood/colour that say the hyper realism of Alan Lee (Lee is more technically skilled but I find his art style rather too drab and serious, Nasmith feels like he injects more of his own vision/style into his work, Lee just seems I dunno...a bit generic/morbid in style), it sets the scene well and my mind can fill in the gaps, I prefer illustrations to look like illustrations rather than photo-realistic screenshots.

[halfwise]

I prefer illustrations to look like illustrations rather than photo-realistic screenshots.

Well, until you reach what is technically known as the Hildebrandt limit.

[Forest Shepherd]

Alan Lee also has rather strange figures. His water-colour is delightful for landscapes and architecture, but his figures are sometimes quite odd looking: their skin almost translucent, their dimensions off. This makes for good depictions of Gollum, but otherwise it goes from beautiful to distorted.

Nobody paints big white beards like John Howe.
I rather prefer his work to Alan Lee's, especially:

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ One thing almost everyone seems to get wrong in depictions of Gandalf is his posture. He has to lean on the staff, his back his bent and he stoops. This is one of the things Bakshi got closest about his Gandalf. He was also 'broad shouldered'.
Gandalfs cloak is nearly always depicted wrong too, Tolkien says it would not have gone much below his knee yet most illustrations have it going to the floor.
He shouldn't have a moustache either, just a beard as in both the mountain picture inspiration Tolkien used and one of his own few illustrations of Gandalf he has a beard but no moustache. }}

[halfwise]

Gandalf the White wasn't hunched over.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ That we made a lore master for! I am not sure, as I cant recall gettng a physical description of Gandalf the White, beyond him being in white under the usual grey-silver cloak. }}

[halfwise]

Or one of the two of us could get off our lazy asses and reread the description of him when he meets the three joggers.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Do you know how far away my bookshelf is from my buckie in this barrel? Must be more than a metre! No chance, not till this kegs done. Your a Prof you should have all your books to hand, and a hot dog from a stand, thats what you eat in New York isnt it? }}

[halfwise]

My fiction books are on the bookshelf over my loft bed. You're asking me to make the climb before I'm properly pissed off at the world and looking to take up a defensive position for the night.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Actually that's fair enough.
Eventually nature will call upon me after this many buckies and I shall attempt to stagger bookwards. Luckily the empty barrel I use next to me needs emptying anyway (advantage of a kilt and an historic tradition of underpant intolerance is you don't have to leave your seat, just sort of shuffle to the edge of it and roughly aim }}

[Pettytyrant101]

"Well met, I say again!" said the old man, coming towards them....he stood, stooping over his staff....the old man took no notice, but stooped and sat himself on a low flat slab.....He sprang to his feet and leaped to the top of alarge rock...grown suddenly talll, towering over them."

{{ I'd argue that his body is the same as before, he is returnedto his physcial body after the Balrog, Gwaihir comments on how thin and light he is and he requires medical recovery by the elves to get back to full health. But as the White he seems more permitted to open displays of his true nature and power and does a few times from here on out. So I think most of the the time he is as described when they thnik he's just an old man, stooped, as Gandalf always was, but when he openly demonstrates his powers he has fewer physical constraints. Its notable in that passge that when he is finshed his display of power and his grey cloak covers his white once more he only steps back down form the rock, he doesnt leap back down. }}

[halfwise]

You seem to win this one. In the warg fight after Caradhras he seems to also stand tall while setting things alight, so it may have nothing to do with the transformation to Gandalf the White.

[Forest Shepherd]

Gandalf should have a beard and no moustache, also Bakshi is so great hey guys did you hear about how great Bakshi is??

I for one disapprove of Amish-Gandalf.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ You may disapprove but that is how Tolkien envisioned Gandalf, beard no moustache. Not too sure about it myself but there you go.
And Bakshi is interesting rather than good which goes for me for all his work from Fritz the Cat to Cool World. I do have a particular soft spot for Fire and Ice as it came into my life in my teenage years and has some exceptional eye catching animation for that age



and at the height of my Tolkien mania and D&D playing. If youve never seen it I highly recomend it, its very much an animated D&D campaign with a lot of stolen Tolkien elements and its, well interesting.}}

[halfwise]

I can't abide a beard with no mustache. Too much like this guy:

[halfwise]

BTW, where's your pic or writing of gandalf without a moustache?

[Forest Shepherd]

Yeah, quote or it didn't happen.

And yeah I've seen Fire & Ice. I have a copy on a hard drive somewhere. It's okay. Too much female ass-waving for my liking. At a certain point it goes beyond attractive and into the Uncanny Valley of nudity: wherein the nudity is so bizarrely extreme, so mind-numbingly flaunted, that our unconscious rejects it utterly and seeks nothing but to flee to a place of sanity.

I guess it's actually really good if your thing is homo-erotic sorcerers thrusting geysers of metaphorical splooge all over the screen.