The Lord of the
Rings
(1979), Whitman (Editor's note Today's submission provided and authored by Kurt, who has graciously us provided a glimpse into this neat book- Take it away Kurt!)
I have very nostalgic feelings for
Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings. It reminds me of the Age of the Video Store
– that popcorn-scented archive of categorized racks of colorful, terrifying,
sometimes lurid shelves of potential thrills and wonder. In the Kid’s Corner, amongst the
predominantly white clamshell cases featuring Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s
Apprentice and compilations of mainstream cartoons, were what I considered the
“more mature” animated movies: titles like Rankin-Bass’ The Hobbit and The Last
Unicorn or Don Bluth’s The Secret of
N.I.M.H. These were cartoons that were thematically darker and
stylistically unique, and to my young mind, Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings was serious stuff. Despite its shortcomings, I still consider it an ambitious and
inspiring piece of art that honestly attempted to adapt a fantasy masterpiece that
had previously been abandoned as unfilmable.
Another passion of mine was
collecting coloring books, often buying a particular book for a single
image. I had a huge collection that,
sadly, was destroyed by renters. Over the
years, I have gradually replaced some of my favorites and found new books that
I never knew existed. I recently ran
across this Lord of the Rings
coloring book by Whitman and was excited to see Bakshi’s vision in bold black
and white line drawings.
Unfortunately, what I ended up with
was a lot of boring scenes and compositions with poorly drawn, often off-model
pictures of the Fellowship walking.
Let’s start with the cover (LOTR Cover): Frodo
“has the Power!” while Gandalf photobombs.
Grab your crayons and still suit and join me after the jump
