Fingolfin’s Findings LXIII: Wulff & Morgenthaler run Uruk in Middle-earth

With the huge amount of comic strips on the web I only occasionally stumble across ‘new names’ when there is a Tolkien connection that goes beyond a panel or two. Also, given the fact that WUMO is supposedly part of the Welt (Opens in a new window) (media bias (Opens in a new window)) newspaper which I only rarely read, except on special occasions, I had not seen this before.

However, there seems to be a certain interest in Middle-earth I would like to show in this post.

Wikipedia summaries this as:

WUMO (Opens in a new window), formerly Wulffmorgenthaler, is a webcomic and newspaper comic strip (Opens in a new window) created by Danish writer/artist duo Mikael Wulff (Opens in a new window) and Anders Morgenthaler (Opens in a new window).

This is a post with two weeks early access to my supporters and which has now been made public.

Let’s have a look at all the ‘Tolkien’ comic strips

And yes, it does not have to be your piece of cake - it really is not mine, to be honest: “Content ranges from sideways social satire to complete non-sequitur (Opens in a new window), and relies on both intelligent humor and simple slapstick.” [WP]

I was also not quite prepared as to how much time I would have to spend on going through all the posts - ranging from October 2024 back to December 2012 (Opens in a new window). So it took me quite a while to find all of the panels with a ‘Tolkien connection’ and I have listed them here, moving backwards in time.

You can skip my comments if you like, of course.

I am not quite sure whether this is truly about JRRT - there is a certain character in a certain US series - but given the fact that we had the new Letters edition it should work. 😅

The All-Seeing Eye made popular by the films certainly has its place with WUMO.

A proper wizard always keeps his staff close, evidently.

I am wildly assuming this is a rendition of Legloas…

If only… 🤪

It feels unfortunate…

Good to see that Rohan will answer…

Legolas seems to have a place with these satirists…

Ummmmm…. Well. 🤓

It would have made things easier, for sure… 😎

I have often thought about the construction of Barad-dûr… and its issues!

Okay, that is fairly funny, at least to me 🤩

The pandemic left its mark in so many ways…

I rue the day Peter Jackson came up with the idea of the flashlight-eye…

The legendary lost & found gag… 🤪

“It’s a hobby!” 😄

Well, it sometimes feels a little like it?

Yeah, that really is a bad idea 😅

Sadly enough, with a company like Palantir, this feels … depressing.

Some strips I liked but with no apparent connection

Well, one thing is for sure: Dragons usually do not have any self-confidence issues.

I can relate. 🤣

At a superficial level they certainly seem to have a point.

This one is just for me 😂

One thing is for sure - ‘perception’ of nerds has changed in the last two decades.

Well, I do hope there were a few fun ones in here for you. As I did my Magister Artium thesis on caricatures (Kennedy - Adenauer era, ‘60s) I always have an interest in comic strips in newspapers as they are ‘signs of the times.’