WHAT'S HOBBITSES PRECIOUS?

So, let's assume Coco Bean and the other Mayans were wrong in their predictions and the world wont end tomorrow night at midnight, affording you the time to pop into Pulp's Art to pick up a hot from the press copy of:

THE HOBBIT AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY CHRONICLES

HC 272pp Color Black + White

Harmer Design

The answer to the quesion posed by this post's title is that Hobbits are small fantasy folk created by a profesor of English, J.R.R.Tolkien, to entertain his children but which proved very popular with readers when he decided to release his stories for a general public, the wee folk then became a media sensation when a New Zealander began adapting these tales for a cinematic audience!

So, I'm sure all of you are aware Peter Jackson, who adapted Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to critical and popular acclaim, has gone back to Middle Earth to adapt Tolkien's more modest tale The Hobbit.

Well the director and his team decided to adapt the original story with a degree of license and to throw in certain subplots alluded to, or simply outlined, in the notes for the Lord of the Rings, so that now three films will be required to tell the tale.

The first film of the trilogy has already gained favorable reviews and packed cinemas, this book covers the visual development to achieve the look of this first film.

Beneath the gorgeous embossed cover is a wealth of visual detail such as only the obsessed designers of Weta Workshop would create, in collaboration with artist such as John Howe and Alan Lee, both of whom return having made enormous contributions to the earlier adaptations.

The book also includes inserts of Thorin's map and Bilbo's Burglar Contract and a small feature on the first few collectibles produced by Weta and theor associates.

So yes it's a return to Middle Earth but the look of the new characters and settings and the twists on the familiar make everything seem fresh and exciting!