Ever since your first appearance in the 1991 Tolkien calendar, and the encore on the cover of the one-volume edition of The Lord of the Rings \u2013 not to mention a host of other editions, all duly accounted for, I\u2019m sad to have to point out you\u2019ve occasionally gone astray.<\/p>\n
First of all, you wandered off to Slovenia, of all places, and while I do concede that the title lettering has a certain panache, you did come out rather greenish-grey, not very becoming.<\/p>\n
A Slovenian edition of \u00a0The Lord of the Rings, with a certain panache in the title lettering but a certain lack of permissions for use.<\/em><\/p>\n In 2003, you were in Turkey, on packages of bubble gum! That awful orange background would have been enough to keep me<\/em> away. (The gum wasn\u2019t very good either, by the way, but I kept the wrapper.) I suppose I should be grateful I haven\u2019t found you on other foodstuffs. (This said, I’m quite partial \u00a0to peppermint-flavoured ice cream; if you’re going to stray, it might as well be on something that I like.)<\/p>\n Gandalf in Turkey, on chewing gum.<\/em><\/p>\n Then there was the Ukraine and Serbia, both surprise appearances. You\u2019ve also been a little less discerning than I\u2019d like in other places as well. Those two odd covers in Bulgaria, for example, where you let the publisher re-paint a lot of the picture, and that book in Germany, where you didn\u2019t stay long enough to appear as you were, and they did a portrait from memory. Oddly enough, these seem to involve you donning a red cloak. If you don\u2019t like the grey, we could talk about it, but honestly, that is how you are described in the book.<\/p>\n Gandalf in Belgrade, both on an edition of the Lord of the Rings, on the\u00a0Fellowship of the Ring and on David Day’s book. (The various editions pictured on that cover front and back\u00a0are all illegal uses, at least\u00a0as far as my images are concerned.<\/em><\/p>\n You do look like you have a guilty conscience on that Russian cover, looking over your shoulder. Also, you\u2019re backwards, you really must make sure if you\u2019re going to let publishers pirate you, they should at least keep you the right way around. You visited Basque country in the same year you were in Turkey (you do get around), admittedly in another image, but still not one I would ever have remotely entertained the idea of approving. Do you recall what the publisher said, that all three Tolkien covers they published were\u00a0original works, created with Middle-Earth themed elements?<\/p>\n From left to right: Gandalf in the Ukraine, wandering in\u00a0Basque country, and looking over his shoulder (backwards)\u00a0in Russia.<\/em><\/p>\n You were all over things with that games publisher in Holland \u2013 booster packs, binders \u2013 I\u2019m still very peeved about that escapade. But, if it\u2019s any consolation, you’re not alone<\/a>\u00a0in your wayward ways, that Nazg\u00fbl with the Dark Tower is VERY popular with Russian heavy metal bands, and has appeared on dozens of albums, none of them with permission of course. But then, I kind of hesitate to remonstrate \u2013 the Witch King is hardly an amenable fellow, and as for the fell beast, those things have a wicked bite. Ulmo, Lord of the Waters gets around pretty well too, for a guy who can\u2019t leave\u00a0the sea. Do you recall that Spanish publisher who used 23 (twenty three!) of my illustrations without permission? Happily they agreed to a fee, but I might never have noticed if we hadn’t been in Valencia for an\u00a0exhibition. (That Turkish publisher comes in second with only eight, but they never bothered to reply.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gandalf in the Low Countries, making an appearance on a binder and on a card box, all without checking beforehand.<\/em><\/p>\n And now I discover that back in 2006 you sneaked into Paraguay without a visa and ended up on a book by an author who had a fellow writer condemned to a couple of\u00a0years behind bars for plagiarism. You really MUST mind the company you keep. People are going to think I somehow condone all that. I confess, though, that I\u2019ve always wanted to visit that part of the world, so I did enjoy appearing in the papers there, even if it was in conjunction with something terribly ironic and so very<\/em>\u00a0awkward. (You’ve been to all these countries I would love to visit. Surely you could have sent a card or two.)<\/p>\n![\"LOTRfront](\"http:\/\/www.john-howe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/LOTRfront-cover.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>Left: A very odd cover commissioned by a German publisher, though Gandalf has swapped his grey cloak for a red one. The next edition of the book featured a new image. Centre and right: Gandalf in red again, this time in Bulgaria, and in curious circumstances.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n