The Eighty-second Roving Ranger

Life and Works

Mar 10, 1950. Tolkien writes Letter 125 (Abre numa nova janela), part of the fascinating and often disappointing (to Tolkien) publication history of The Lord of the Rings.
March 13, 1956. Tolkien receives a letter from Sam Gamgee - see Letter 184 (Abre numa nova janela).
March 16, 1916. Tolkien receives his degree from the University of Oxford (Abre numa nova janela) in a much delayed ceremony.
March 21, 1967. Tolkien writes a letter to Humphrey Carpenter (Abre numa nova janela) who had asked for permission of turning The Hobbit into a children's musical play.
March 22, 1968. The Daily Telegraph publishes an interview (Abre numa nova janela) of Charlotte and Denis Plimmer with J.R.R. Tolkien titled The Man Who Understands Hobbits.

Events & Shows

A Colloquium on developing digital critical edition of Tolkien Fanzines (Abre numa nova janela) will be happening March 29th with the Raynor Memorial Libraries (Abre numa nova janela) at Marquette University.

I am not sure why the Dalles-Wasco County Public Library (Abre numa nova janela) is going all out nuts on The Hobbit from March 1st - April 29th but I love it - and I would love to participate (Abre numa nova janela) in The Floor is Mt Doom as well as Stocking Bilbo's Pantry. 😍

The Lord of the Rings Musical (Abre numa nova janela) will return, this time to the English countryside at the Watermill Theatre close to Newbury, from Jul 25 - Oct 15, 2023; it is not clear yet which version of the musical this will be or what changes may have been made to it; however, the original London cast number was 68, this one is supposed to have about 20.

A theatre in British Columbia will bring The Hobbit (Abre numa nova janela) to the stage in July.

Scholarship and Fandom

Tolkien scholar Jason Fisher (Abre numa nova janela) mentioned on LinkedIn (Abre numa nova janela) that he was involved in the making of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth | MTG (Abre numa nova janela). 

• [Corey Olsen mentioned (Abre numa nova janela) he was involved with LotR: Return to Moria so it is good to see expertise is being asked.]

A review of The Norse Myths That Shape the Way We Think (Abre numa nova janela) by Carolyne Larrington.

One of the best fannish calendars for 2023 can still be ordered with Beyond Bree (Abre numa nova janela).

Laura Burke (Abre numa nova janela) has an exhibition in Portland (Abre numa nova janela), Oregon, called Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow (Abre numa nova janela).

#TolkienTrewsDay on Twitter is starting to be a thing and I wrote a piece on trees for its second edition, talking about the legendary Pinus Nigra (Abre numa nova janela) at the OBGA.

John D. Rateliff recently celebrated the deluxe edition of HotH (Abre numa nova janela).

Franchise and Merchandise

I was invited to a presentation with Lord of the Rings: Gollum developer Daedalic (Abre numa nova janela) in Hamburg last week and I am very happy to see a new trailer (Abre numa nova janela) and a first dev diary (Abre numa nova janela) have found their way online since then. I will be able to write more about this soon.

The situation as of right now when it comes to the franchise might be summarised like this: ‘Lord of the Rings’: Amazon, Warner Bros. Ready for Tolkien Battle (Abre numa nova janela). [Hollywood Reporter; see quote below]

The result could leave two behemoth studios feeling like they’re spending billions to fight over Tolkien’s creative lembas bread crumbs.

Having said this, Warner Bros. are 'only just starting to expand (Abre numa nova janela)' on the LotR & Harry Potter IPs. [Variety]

Streaming has changed the business but now the mega-IPs have to reconsider some of their plans - see Star Wars (Abre numa nova janela). [Variety]

A fairly decent post on Where the Lion and the Witch Met the Hobbit (Abre numa nova janela). [New York Times]

I was ready to blow a fuse when reading the headline - but it is not quite that bad 😅 10 Literary Quotes To Inspire You As A Startup Founder (Abre numa nova janela) [Forbes]

The New Zealand Mint is also cashing on... Poster coins (Abre numa nova janela)! 

If you want to know all there is to know - so far - on the Magic version of the LotR franchise here we go (Abre numa nova janela).

Meet the award-winning (Abre numa nova janela) legal advice team that helped the Embracer Group buy Middle-earth Enterprises: Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP (Abre numa nova janela).

The company behind The One Ring RPG, Free League Publishing (Abre numa nova janela), has announced the expansion Tales from the Lone-Lands (Abre numa nova janela).

Inter alia & Back in the day

Brian Sibley has kindly enough shared Microphones in Middle-earth (Abre numa nova janela), a behind the curtains look at the possibly best adaptation of The Lord of the Rings yet.

It is always interesting to see how years' old posts and art get a revival somewhere on social media - like this Nick Kohney/ The Other End comic from 2019.

Or Nathan W. Pyle's Strange Planet from 2021.

Tolkien gets an article with the Country Life special edition of March 8, 2023 as Lord of the Shires (Abre numa nova janela).

Charlie Connelly takes a 'new' Terry Pratchett book as inspiration to ask Should undiscovered Terry Pratchett stories, and other posthumous work, be published? (Abre numa nova janela) [New European]

Star Trek: Discovery (Abre numa nova janela) will finish with season 5, Picard with season 3. [EW]

‘It’s Kind of Embarrassing (Abre numa nova janela)’: Why Animators Are Unhappy With the Oscars. [Vulture]

Another Alien (Abre numa nova janela) film is in the making. [The Wertzone]

According to German law I have to infom you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's, the bookshop of my personal trust.

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) : Twitter (Abre numa nova janela) : Instagram (Abre numa nova janela) : Tolkien-Discord (Abre numa nova janela) [de/en]

What to look forward to in 2023 if you like Tolkien and all things Tolkienian