Showing posts with label cool graphics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cool graphics. Show all posts

Friday, 28 May 2010

The Russian Hobbit

You may recall this post about Tove Jansson's illustrations for the Finnish version of The Hobbit. Well, continuing on a theme here are the illustrations from the first Russian edition (via BoingBoing).

Here's the Russian Gollum:


They're not quite as charming as Jansson's, but they still have a beautiful folkloric allure that totally alludes modern interpreters who are too deeply emeshed in the aesthetic of modern genre fantasy and insufficiently connected to folklore. I quite like the drunken Yeltsin Bilbo.

I've got an edition that came out at the same time as the Rankin bass animated TV movie, which is okay but a little literal for my tastes, really. The kids are nearly old enough for it - I'm sure Lou would like it but Isbo is maybe a little young and would likely spend the time sighing in bed as she currently does during the nightly chapter of Charlie & the Great Glass Elevator.