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Roac, Son of Carc
Roac, Son of Carc
Watercolour on illustration board
30.0 x 40.0 cm
1979
I did a series of five illustrations from The Hobbit to partcipate in a contest at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. This was midway through art school, and participation in the contest and attendance at the annual Bologna Fiera del Libro per Ragazzi was practically mandatory. (Actually, it was a wonderful excursion every time. Bologna is a magnificent city, the food is - like everywhere in Italy - sublime, even for students with shallow pockets, and you could show your portfolio to practically every major editor in the world. We even got frisked at gunpoint once by the carbinieri, very exciting...) Needless to say, my illustrations got turned down. (I think out of half a dozen attempts, I was accepted once.) Looking at them now, I'm hardly surprised.
Dwarves with cucumbers for noses, tank-top chain mail, grim landscapes and midgets with oversized feet must not have seemed appropriate to a jury. At that time, almost nobody in my class had even heard of Tolkien anyway... ("Tolkien? was he the guy who made that awful cartoon film?")
The other four images:
Beorn
Bilbo
Gollum
The Death of Thorin
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