One hundred and twenty-seventh Roving Ranger

Events & Shows

The Lure of Middle-earth (Abre numa nova janela), “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 (Abre numa nova janela), either online already or still upcoming, on C.S. Lewis.

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

Review of the Hobbit stage version (Abre numa nova janela) at the TOY, Buffalo.

Feel like winning tickets to the LotR musical (Abre numa nova janela)? [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 (Abre numa nova janela) [March 20]

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

The Tolkien Lecture in Oxford has announced its next speaker: Zen Cho (Abre numa nova janela).

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Abre numa nova janela) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Abre numa nova janela).

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 (Abre numa nova janela).

Miriam Ellis has Marcho, Blanco and Dark Ages Hobbit Hardihood (Abre numa nova janela).

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

Volume 20, issue 2 (Abre numa nova janela), of the Journal of Tolkien Research has added more items.

‘Reduced to nonsense’: JRR Tolkien’s irritation with typist revealed in archive (Abre numa nova janela)[Guardian; h/t Andrew Wells]

Merchandise & Franchise

Interesting: ‘You Shall Not Pass’: ‘Lord of the Fries’ Trademark Dispute Has a Winner (Abre numa nova janela) [Variety Australia; original report with TheAge (Abre numa nova janela) (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 (Abre numa nova janela)[SlashFilm]

Lord of the Rings Online's 64-bit Server Transfers Temporarily Disabled After Slow Processing and Issues (Abre numa nova janela) [MMORPG]

Ablaze Media will be selling the Kalevala (Abre numa nova janela) and Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela)(h/t Tolkien Visual Collecting Guide (Abre numa nova janela))

Rick’s Bakery (Abre numa nova janela) in Fayetteville, Arkansas, knows how to sell its workshops: why not do a hobbit house (Abre numa nova janela)?

A petition to reopen Monolith Studios (Abre numa nova janela) 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' (Abre numa nova janela) [Youtube]

The latest custom keyboard by DROP is Gondor (Abre numa nova janela).

Inter alia

Shrek 5 has a teaser (Abre numa nova janela).

Typewriters, stinky carpets and crazy press trips: what it was like working on video game mags in the 1980s (Abre numa nova janela) [Guardian]

Michael Whelan has 1976: Year in Review (Part One) (Abre numa nova janela) [Substack]

Thinking about starting a newsletter, podcast, Patreon, Substack etc.?

Then do consider using Steady (Abre numa nova janela) - it is an exceptionally easy to use option for all needs. Built originally for an independent journalists’ collective, Krautreporter (Abre numa nova janela), it is run by creative minds for creative minds. Think Patreon, just better. It is based in Germany and free of enshittification (Abre numa nova janela).

Do use my invite link (Abre numa nova janela) and start with three months fee-free.
[Transparency note: I get a small referral bonus with no extra costs to you.]

According to German law I have to inform you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's (Abre numa nova janela), Bookshop.org (Abre numa nova janela), or Genialokal (Abre numa nova janela), the (independent) bookshops of my personal trust (one with a Tolkien connection!)

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Abre numa nova janela) : Facebook (Abre numa nova janela) : Bluesky (Abre numa nova janela) : Instagram (Abre numa nova janela) : Threads (Abre numa nova janela) : Mastodon (Abre numa nova janela).
Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Abre numa nova janela)

As this is 2025 I would like to note that this newsletter is 100% human-made, curated by me, Marcel R. Bülles. This also holds true for everything I write with my blog and here at Steady. Also, the average time of curating this newsletter ranges from 12-16 hours for the bi-weekly edition and 6-8 hours for the weekly one.

Are you interested in a gift for someone you really like?
... and that person happens to like Tolkien? Look no further 😁🥳

I have gift plans for a Steady membership with 370+ posts, rants, reviews, event reports, Fingolfin's Findings, Boromir's Bloggish Bebotherments and more...