One hundred and twenty-seventh Roving Ranger

Events & Shows

The Lure of Middle-earth (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), “The worlds biggest fan organised convention for Middle-earth CCG and Lord of the Rings LCG”, is happening this weekend in a German medieval castle with Ted Nasmith as GoH.

The Wade Center has the Aubrey Buster 2025 Hansen Lectures (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), either online already or still upcoming, on C.S. Lewis.

The carnival at Viareggio (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Italy, had a huge allegorical float titled "The Last Heroes Of Innocence” in which the Witch-king of Angmar was depicted (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Instagram; official website (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), see 2nd category floats]

Review of the Hobbit stage version (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) at the TOY, Buffalo.

Feel like winning tickets to the LotR musical (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)? [West Australian]

The opening of the Tolkien Tapestries exhibition is linked with a conference at the Sorbonne Nouvelle: L'œuvre de JRR Tolkien et l'écologie (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [March 20]

Mareike Huber (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) will present ‘Languages on the Move: Tolkien's Invented Languages and Their Use in Adaptations’ (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on March 14 at Corpus Christi College.

The Tolkien Lecture in Oxford has announced its next speaker: Zen Cho (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Scholarship & Fandom

The subreddit r/fantasy does polls of favourite books; this redditor did a different calculation for 2014-2025, having J.R.R. Tolkien rank third (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Miriam Ellis has Marcho, Blanco and Dark Ages Hobbit Hardihood (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Lilly Library at Indiana University Bloomington (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has a blog post titled Drawing Tolkien: Art Inspired by Tolkien’s Legendarium (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on Tree by Tolkien (Colin Wilson; h/t Tolkien Gleanings (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)).

Volume 20, issue 2 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), of the Journal of Tolkien Research has added more items.

‘Reduced to nonsense’: JRR Tolkien’s irritation with typist revealed in archive (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)[Guardian; h/t Andrew Wells]

Merchandise & Franchise

Interesting: ‘You Shall Not Pass’: ‘Lord of the Fries’ Trademark Dispute Has a Winner (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Variety Australia; original report with TheAge (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (paywall)]

Any article on the wonderful Jed Brophy gets a listing here: The Only Actor Who Has Appeared In Lord Of The Rings, The Hobbit & The Rings Of Power (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)[SlashFilm]

Lord of the Rings Online's 64-bit Server Transfers Temporarily Disabled After Slow Processing and Issues (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [MMORPG]

Ablaze Media will be selling the Kalevala (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) graphic novels as a bundle called J.R.R. Tolkien Genesis Collected Set this May, 28; preorders available.

The Phantom Warner Bros. 100th Anniversary (by Kakawow) has collectible cards with figures from the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” film trilogies (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)(h/t Tolkien Visual Collecting Guide (Öffnet in neuem Fenster))

Rick’s Bakery (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Fayetteville, Arkansas, knows how to sell its workshops: why not do a hobbit house (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)?

A petition to reopen Monolith Studios (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) had 16 signatures at the time of writing [Change.org]

Full Commentary from Cast and Crew on 'The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim' (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Youtube]

The latest custom keyboard by DROP is Gondor (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Inter alia

Shrek 5 has a teaser (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Typewriters, stinky carpets and crazy press trips: what it was like working on video game mags in the 1980s (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Guardian]

Michael Whelan has 1976: Year in Review (Part One) (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Substack]

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Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

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