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noWizardme
Gondolin
Sun, 11:43am
Post #1 of 7
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Tove Jansson's Hobbit illustrations
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Tove Jansson (athour and illustrator of the Moomins) was commissioned to do the illustrations for a 1960 Swedish translation of The Hobbit. There's an article about it here, including some of the illustrations.
We get so used to the Howe, Lee, Nasmith, WETA visual imagings of Tolkien that it is fun and perhaps a bit startling to see something so diferent (and, in places, easily identifiable as Jansson).
I also enjoyed reading this:
‘Her Gollum towered monstrously large, to the surprise of Tolkien himself, who realized that he had never clarified Gollum’s size and so amended the second edition to describe him as ‘a small, slimy creature’. But can that be right? If Jansson was working on a translation of TH in 1960, it surely must have been the second edition. Are we talking about a later text amendment to the 2e here, or is the story fun but apocryphal?
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"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Felagund
Nargothrond
Sun, 2:42pm
Post #2 of 7
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love this (and the Moomins)! (plus a Latvian angle...)
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Love the Jansson illustrations for The Hobbit, thanks for posting! I don't own a copy but hope to track one down one day, if there's such thing as an affordable edition. The picture provided in the article of the destruction of Laketown is absolutely brutal and Smaug's gleeful expression is full-on!
Your posting of this reminded me of the Laima Eglite illustrated edition of The Hobbit, from 1991. A Latvian friend suggested that I check it out when it became clear that I was a Tolkien tragic. This link link gives a good overview of the job Eglite did. I love her use of bold colour, which goes nicely with the grain of how Tolkien made a fuss of the colour of the dwarves' hoods and so on. Gandalf's eyebrows are nicely over the top and there's a lovely pathos about the picture of Bilbo saying farewell to the dying Thorin, I reckon. And get ready for a very seal-like Gollum!
Give me a shout if I've made my usual mess of posting links!
As for whether the Jansson / Gollum snippet is apocryphal, I had a quick look at my copy of Rateliff's The History of the Hobbit and there seems to be an answer to be had. Rateliff says that the addition of small, slimy creature, thus giving Gollum 'scale', is a product of the third edition process (1966). So, that gives enough time for Jansson to illustrate the towering Gollum in 1960 and then for Tolkien to react to that and revisit the matter as part of his 1966 tinkering.
Welcome to the Mordorfone network, where we put the 'hai' back into Uruk
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Sun, 6:39pm
Post #3 of 7
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Rateliff says that the addition of small, slimy creature, thus giving Gollum 'scale', is a product of the third edition process (1966). So, that gives enough time for Jansson to illustrate the towering Gollum in 1960 and then for Tolkien to react to that and revisit the matter as part of his 1966 tinkering.
That sounds like a very plausible explanation, with the article about Jansson simply saying second where it should say third.
I remember that Tolkien changed Riddles in the Dark pretty substantially in Hobbit 2e, to make it consistent with the new stuff he had invented for LOTR about Bilbo's Ring. We discussed that in readthrough here, and finding that reminded me of squire's excellent essay about the implications of Gollum's caracteristic manner of speaking before it's to do with The One Ring. All fun stuff to rediscover! And the new point I wanted to make was that (while this can't be what is going in with Jansson), 2e TH Gollum might be illustrated rather differenty from 1e Gollum.
Loved the Laima Egliteillustrated hobbuit - wow, those creepy spoders with human hands on the ends of their legs, and the illustration with the Arkenstone.
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"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Sun, 8:30pm
Post #4 of 7
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Some Tolkien illustrations by Frank Franzetta - Not sure his Eowyn would have got away pretending to be Dernhelm though. 
Again though, something different from the visual language we've got used to for Tolkien art.
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"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Sun, 8:59pm
Post #5 of 7
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Not my cup of tea, except Smaug--quite good //
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Sun, 9:02pm
Post #6 of 7
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Frazetta really captured the imagery well, IMO
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Especially the Wi-king vs. Eowyn. The Wi-king isn't even all that much taller or broader than her, but he *feels* so bad and terrible. She doesn't look helpless, but she seems like a mortal outmatched by the supernatural.
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Otaku-sempai
Elvenhome
1:04am
Post #7 of 7
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I can see where Frank Frazetta's illustrations might have served as inspirations for character designs for Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Ring, especially in regards to the hobbits. Bakshi did famously team with Frazetta for his animated swords-and-sorcery film Fire and Ice.
“Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved.” - Tony Isabella
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