Stu wrote:
onthetrail wrote:
Morinehtar wrote:
onthetrail wrote:
'Morinehtar wrote:
Have those illustrations ever been included elsewhere?
I said I wouldn't buy more copies of books I already have but they might get me with this one if they have illustrations which have never been printed before.
I doubt very much if anything will be new. And to be frank, I am waiting on reviews for this next volume as The lord of the Rings illustrations are absolute garbage.
That's sad to hear. I was about to start collecting these new "illustrated by the author" hardbacks, but if the illustrations are bad then it makes no sense to do that.
I am sure others here will argue the other way on this and say the images are fine. Each of us has different ideas about what is good quality after all. But my thinking is that this was the first time that these images were presented with Tolkien's texts, they should have been on photographic paper, instead they are on awful quality paper and in many cases text shows through on the side of images. And for my likes that is very, very poor from HarperCollins. When people ask me for the best image quality of Tolkien's own artwork and my answer is to buy reference books (Art of the Hobbit, Art of Rings etc) over a world first book, the publisher should be ashamed of themselves.
I think the problem that have is that they want to put illustrations in the book without thought to where they can fit if printed on different paper. The last time they did a book properly with photographic paper only for the illustrations (thus the positioning being dictated by the construction of the book as much as the art), was the 1992 Illustrated LoTR. Since then they have used paper for the text that is glossy or made everything matte. Honestly, they need to design the books so they can work properly.
Of course, it's a matter of taste to a certain degree and different people have different standards, but I do find these issues to be deal-breakers. I want high quality (and I'd be willing to pay more for it).
By the way, is this also the case with its corresponding Deluxe version? I wonder if collecting those might be worth it. Are they more Deluxe than the previous Deluxe run?
Morinehtar wrote:
Stu wrote:
onthetrail wrote:
Morinehtar wrote:
onthetrail wrote:
'Morinehtar wrote:
Have those illustrations ever been included elsewhere?
I said I wouldn't buy more copies of books I already have but they might get me with this one if they have illustrations which have never been printed before.
I doubt very much if anything will be new. And to be frank, I am waiting on reviews for this next volume as The lord of the Rings illustrations are absolute garbage.
That's sad to hear. I was about to start collecting these new "illustrated by the author" hardbacks, but if the illustrations are bad then it makes no sense to do that.
I am sure others here will argue the other way on this and say the images are fine. Each of us has different ideas about what is good quality after all. But my thinking is that this was the first time that these images were presented with Tolkien's texts, they should have been on photographic paper, instead they are on awful quality paper and in many cases text shows through on the side of images. And for my likes that is very, very poor from HarperCollins. When people ask me for the best image quality of Tolkien's own artwork and my answer is to buy reference books (Art of the Hobbit, Art of Rings etc) over a world first book, the publisher should be ashamed of themselves.
I think the problem that have is that they want to put illustrations in the book without thought to where they can fit if printed on different paper. The last time they did a book properly with photographic paper only for the illustrations (thus the positioning being dictated by the construction of the book as much as the art), was the 1992 Illustrated LoTR. Since then they have used paper for the text that is glossy or made everything matte. Honestly, they need to design the books so they can work properly.
Of course, it's a matter of taste to a certain degree and different people have different standards, but I do find these issues to be deal-breakers. I want high quality (and I'd be willing to pay more for it).
By the way, is this also the case with its corresponding Deluxe version? I wonder if collecting those might be worth it. Are they more Deluxe than the previous Deluxe run?
The page blocks for the author illustrated LoTR were identical between standard and deluxe (other than the sprayed edges). Whether that will be the case here is anybody's guess - I doubt we will know until they hit the streets. The Silmarillion is a much shorter book, so I doubt the paper would ever be as bad as it was on the LoTR.
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