The Giant Sword!

I'll admit this work by artist Tom Jung doesn't really have all that much to do with the essence of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, but the image of Gandalf the Wizard holding up an impossibly enormous sword with two little Hobbit forms staring up at him does sell the notion of sword and sorcery and that's not unimportant.


Here is a small glimpse at the original pencil work by Jung.


And here is the complete poster in all its glory. This poster for Ralph Bakshi's entertaining but ultimately unsuccessful adaptation of the great saga sells this movie as a mainstream event. For all its flaws, I wish Bakshi had been able to complete the story, at least in some small way. The ultimate cartoon version by Rankin and Bass is okay, but falls short in tone.

Still, it's a pretty poster.

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A Nora Hope!

The classic Star Wars poster by Tom Jung really captures the grandeur of the original movie, and it also seems to capture the likenesses of two of the stars. Both Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher seem to be represented by the two heroic figures in the foreground.


That's quite unlike the exceedingly similar Brothers Hildebrandt version of this classic image. This one seems to have been done without specific actor references from the film.



I spent the weekend watching classic Thin Man movies starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as the witty sleuthing couple Nick and Nora Charles, and after that prolonged exposure to the gorgeous Myrna as Nora, I noticed that the female figure on the Hildebrandt poster seems remarkably like her, especially her exotic narrow eyes and her lovely pouting mouth.

I put it out there for your consideration.

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