Continuing on from their comic strip version of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Motion Pictures Comics.com has released The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
Category: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
SALT LAKE CITY — At a press conference to announce its inclusion of Simon Pegg as a guest, FantasyCon said it has the largest contingent of Tolkien guests at a fan convention ever, including parts of the staff of TheOneRing.net.
Coming from the Lord of the Rings films:
Sean Astin
Billy Boyd
John Rhys-Davies.
Scheduled for visits from The Hobbit films are:
Adam Brown
John Callen
Peter Hambleton
Jed Brophy
William Kircher
Ken Stott
Graham McTavish
Sylvester McCoy
Other Tolkien-related content:
TheOneRing.net
Doug Adams
Artist Donato Giancola
Artist Justin Gerard
You can read the full article, including the announcement of Simon Pegg, right here.
With a poster signed by Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Luke Evans, Martin Freeman and Evangeline Lilly up for grabs as the prize, many of you were eager to show us your The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug DVDs and Blu-rays, in photos submitted for our #wheresbilbo competition. We loved looking at all the entries, and as usual, it was hard to pick a winner! Lots of people sent in images showing their extensive collections of Middle-earth collectibles, whilst many others took snaps showing their adorable pets taking care of their DVDs. A group of staff from TORn all voted, and our final overall winner was @WadeAcuff, with his ‘sketchy’ entry:
The staffers were impressed by the beautiful artwork shown in Wade’s photo – he’s clearly a talented fellow!
Other images we loved included @LapisLizuli’s dragon eating her DVD:
And @TolkienistView’s clever set of ‘polaroids’:
@crazysirius clearly ‘treasures’ her DVD:
@RSinsir’s dogs are doing a great job of guarding her ‘precious’:
@EmmersChau found her DVD taking a bath – complete with bearded rubber duck! Check out the details on those bottles – the body wash is ‘Elf-repelling’!
Finally, @I_Christina_I was lucky enough to be able to take Bilbo back to his own front door:
There were many more great entries, including some of folks in costume. Many thanks to all of you who sent in fab photos and entertained us with your creativity (and with much cuteness from various pets!) We wish we could have had more than one winner! Congratulations to Wade – the signed poster will be on its way to him very soon.
Our friends at Weta Workshop have a couple of new books for fans to add to their collections. The first book is the next in the Chronicles series, which gives you a great inside look at the task of bringing the many costumes, armour, and weapons that were needed to bring The Hobbit Trilogy to life. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Chronicles – Cloaks and Daggers does just that, but it doesn’t just cover the second film, it also covers the many designs needed in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. If you pre-order the book right now you can get it signed by some of the folks who helped bring these films to the big screen!
The second release Weta has for fans is an amazing looking two book set covering the 20 years they have been helping to bring films to life. This inside look is brimming with never-before-seen content covering films such as; The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Hobbit Trilogy, Avatar, King Kong, District 9, and much more. You can get The Hobbit Art Book for $39 and Weta: The Art of Film Magic – 20 Years of of Weta for $99.
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Godzilla is stomping closer to theaters while Smaug is between the two films featuring the performance of Benedict Cumberbatch, but Wall Street Journal writer Michael Calia asked our own news editor Demosthenes to help out with the showdown between the two pop-culture heavyweights. Its a pretty fun read and Demos certainly did us proud but if Godzilla is King of the Monsters (1956 film) then maybe he should face J.R.R. Tolkien’s greatest dragon Ancalagon The Black. Many readers at the WSJ blog probably haven’t heard of him though, so Smaug is much more fun for the masses. You can read the blow-by-blow right here.
Middle-earth fan Kieran contacted us recently to say:
“I’m an animation student at Dundee University, and we’ve just finished a 12 week project which I think you guys will appreciate! We’re massive fans of Tolkien, and we’re really pleased with our short animation… ”
So of course we went over to vimeo to check it out – and we were impressed! The vimeo page tells us, ‘An MSc Animation class project, in association with Axis Animation, to provide an unofficial short animation to tie in with the release of The Hobbit: Desolation Of Smaug. The project took 13 weeks and explores the mysterious origins of the dragons of Middle Earth. ‘
We thought our readers would enjoy it too – so here it is!
Concerning Dragons from Kieran Duncan on Vimeo.
Thanks also to Lilly for letting us know about this.