Sendak and Tolkien: "The Hobbit" that never was

Image: Maurice Sendak/Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, via LA Times

There's been much ado about dwarves recently with the latest image to come out of Peter Jackson's version of the Hobbit. I stumbled upon this amazing article from the LA Times (back in March) on an abandoned project by beloved children's book author/illustrator Maurice Sendak and Lord of the Rings himself. From the article:

If you look closely, you will discover a master at work in the art of subtlety: Notice the heavy crosshatching used to weigh down a world-weary Gandalf contrasted with the open, airy line work that renders the jovial Bilbo. These depictions speak in an artistic conversation that has been ongoing for centuries, yet they are immediate and approachable by the child of today.

As Sendak noted passages for possible illustration and sketched in the margins of his copy of the book, the publisher prepared the art samples for Tolkien’s approval. The editor mislabeled the samples, however, identifying the wood-elves as “hobbits,” as Sendak recalled to Maguire. This blunder nettled Tolkien. His reply was that Sendak had not read the book closely and did not know what a hobbit was. Consequently, Tolkien did not approve the drawings. Sendak was furious.

Read the rest of the article to get the full story.

I find this fascinating and heartbreaking all at once. Sendak's art is vibrant and original and his interpretation may have defined fantasy for a generation had it made it to publication. Sadly, where the wild things are not is Middle Earth.

What do you think?

Terry Pratchet Knighted, Forges Own +1 Sword from Meteorite

Image: Associated Press

Seriously, you cannot get more baddass fantasy than making your own magic sword! Pratchett was recently knighted by the Queen (Helloooooo! Wait, that's Julia Child, nevermind) and to commemorate the event he MADE HIS OWN SWORD From news.com.au (really, that's your website's name? Okay, fine.)...

Pratchett, believing the sword would not truly be his own unless it was made from metal he had produced, found a field with deposits of iron ore near his home in Wiltshire, west of London. He gathered the deposits and smelted the iron ore himself.

But wait, it gets better:

Pratchett, who has Alzheimer's disease, also said he had thrown in "several pieces of meteorites — thunderbolt iron, you see — highly magical, you’ve got to chuck that stuff in whether you believe in it or not".

Read the whole, completely true and awesome story.

Image: Associated Press

Congrats Sir Pratchett! 

/Hat tip to Boing Boing.

My other fantasy muses

Yeah, Dungeon! my favorite boardgame cast a strong spell on the way I saw fantasy growing up in the 80s. And of course the box sets of D&D (and the accompanying illustrations) were also very influential. But there were a handful of other books, toys, movies, etc.--cheesy as they may have been. ;)

Man I played the hell out of Crypts of Chaos on my 2600. I never did have Adventure--and the official AD&D game was for the Intellivision (lame!). C of C not only sported awesome cartridge art featuring Luke and Leia stand-ins in a dream-like dungeon of weirdness--it was a FIRST PERSON GAME! The corridors of the dungeon would move toward you and wandering monsters would attack. You had mere seconds to get your wand or magic ring ready...which was usually out of charges. And I think the cart art still freaks me out....
 

 

 

Dragonslayer was one of the first full-length fantasy films I remember seeing and being impressed by. I saw it on VHS first and the scene with the baby dragons always made me quesy. Could have done without the page boy haircuts, but it still has one of the great wizard v. lizard battle scenes. Before this film, my idea of an amulet was a big, gaudy jewel--instead of the small, glowing crystal packed with white-hot magic featured in the film. Neat stuff!

Forest of Doom is a wonderful playset made by Dimensions for Children (a now defunct toy company) in a series of other great playmat-with-plastic-figures format sets. Reis O'Brien at Geek Orthodox has blogged extensively on the set which was part of the Dragon Riders of the Styx figure line. I can't say much more than Reis has on the subject, except that from my own experience I loved the iconic figures. They represented to me the basic monsters, wizards, and knights that make up the storybook "fantasy" template. I still have the set in it's original box and I've featured figures from it in the past on Spellcard.

Dungeon of Dread by Rose Estes was my first choose-your-own-adventure type book (TSR called their line "Endless Quest"), of which I later graduated on to the Zork books. The adventure itself is pretty basic, but the great Jeff Easley cover had me conjuring up adventures in my imagination for years to come.

Finally we come to the D&D cartoon, which I know a lot of OSR gamers detest--but I had great fun watching it when I was young. It also represented several AD&D classes as characters on-screen for the first time, so I had a good visual of what they were capable of (even though the cavalier didn't have a sword!). Anyway, I picked up the box set when it came out a few years ago and wasn't disappointed. It even came with a game scenario starring the main characters.

I also had many of the D&D toys, including this bad boy:

...The Fortress of Fangs! It was filled with crazy booby traps and was a great companion to Castle Greyskull.

Anyway, those are just a few of the fun relics. What's in your vault--games, books, movies, posters? Anything off the beaten path that inspired you back in the day? Feel free to list in the comments.

Update: Reis has taken down his blog, so here are some other Dragonriders of the Styx resources out there:

• Action Figures CA (this one has some good photos of the set I had)
• Virtual Toy Chest
• Toymania
• Topless Robot posts on fantasy toys of the 70s and 80s

The Vorpal Sword of Wonderland

 Beautiful sword designed by Deviant Art artist Merlkir

Just got home after seeing Alice in Wonderland in 3D. Definitely a feast for the eyes and I'm glad I went. I won't spoil it for anyone who wants to go, except to say that the Jabberwocky and Vorpal sword make an appearance.

Speaking of which, does anyone know when the first mention of the Vorpal sword appeared in D&D lore? Which book exactly?

UPDATE: An astute forum commenter over at Dragonsfoot found my answer:

First D&D appearance was in Supplement 1: Greyhawk (1975) under magic items as Vorpal Blade. It was a pumped up Sword of Sharpness.

Thanks themattjon!

An OSR overload!

The last of my recent holiday acquisitions arrived today (Stonehell Dungeon). The whole pile of loot includes:

• Dungeon Alphabet, Michael Curtis with Goodman Games
  
• Fight On! issue #7, (fall issue)* from publisher Ignatius Ümlaut
• Doug Easterly's Savage Swords of Athanor (a Swords & Wizardry supplement)*
  
• X-plorers (sci-fi RPG) by David Bezio*
• Stonehell Dungeon, by Michael Curtis*
• Used copy of Star Frontiers via ebay
• Starblazers and Dungeon Crawl Classics (PDFs only)*
• Kobold Quarterly, issue #10 (free off KQ's website using promo code)
  

Don't get me wrong I'm elated that I got it all for a song compared to what most game material goes for in stores, but I'm ready (and so's my wallet) to stop spending and get reading! What are you all reading--or looking forward to reading these days?

*Print versions purchased using discount codes on LuLu; PDFs purchased using discounts on RPGNow.

Hey, you've got your SCIENCE in my FANTASY!

No, you've got your fantasy in my sci-fi!

There's a lot of talk lately about the resurgence of the old-school or the old school renaissance in RPGs and a call to return back to the roots of science fantasy. In fact some are calling for an escalation of these efforts (which I whole-heartedly embrace BTW). Apparently some people are squeamish about mixing the two, barring a few one-off exceptions. Which, to be honest, is understandable. Especially if you're trying to create a world where technology can't come in and trump your magic system or where an omnipotent race of aliens can easily annihilate your meticulously crafted medieval analogue world. For some, it was less of an issue, but most seem to be more comfortable keeping sci-fi and fantasy separate.

It occurred to me however that if you started with a sci-fi universe and sprinkled in some magic or low-tech, then people don't seem to mind. Mysticism and lasers seemed like two things too good to pass up.

Case in point:
...or so we thought, before 1999. But isn't it funny how (essentially working backwards in a sense) it's easier to think of a sci-fi world in the broad strokes of fantasy, than to try and upgrade an ancient world into a larger universe.

Food for thought I guess. Thoughts?