Tag Archive: j.r.r. tolkien

Watchmen and The Lord of the Rings Are Strikingly Similar Landmarks

Watching The Rings Moore’s Watchmen and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Are Strikingly Similar Landmarks   When one talks of vital contributions to the art of comics, one cannot ignore Alan Moore. With a body of work as consistently terrific as his – he has more certifiable classics under his belt than any comic writer of the last 30 years – targeting any given tale as his “best” is an impossible task. But of Alan Moore’s contributions to comicdom, one truly stands as not just an undeniable landmark, but the undeniable landmark, putting its stamp on comic history forever: Watchmen, the powerful 12-issue collaboration with Dave Gibbons circa the Reagan-era 1980s. Just how big a landmark is this now classic tale? Alan Moore’s Watchmen is to modern comics what J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord…
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Goodbye, Ray Bradbury

I’m not much for mourning celebrity deaths. I generally don’t care that you were in a few movies or TV shows, or that you wrote some catchy song I haven’t heard in six years. Such passings are sad, but they have little impact on my life. But Ray Bradbury, who passed away this morning at the age of 91, was more than a mere celebrity author to me. He was a tremendous influence on me both growing up as well as in later years when I began to pursue writing more seriously; a man whose work informed me, inspired me, and solidified my long clung-to dream of being a writer. Bradbury was a special kind of wordsmith. Unlike most modern authors, he rarely dabbled in…
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J.R.R. Tolkien is the reason why I write

I’ve no interest in writing epic fantasy, have gotten past the days when I wanted to construct a complex mythology, and hell, haven’t even rolled a 20-sided die in many years. Yet I would not be writing today in any capacity were it not for the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. Middle-Earth first entered my consciousness in the sixth grade or so. The Hobbit was assigned reading. Unlike most students, I didn’t consider assigned reading a form of torture. (Well, except when the books sucked — which they often did.) I liked reading, and the books we had to read were often excellent. The Outsiders, Lord of the Flies, The Pigman, 1984, and many other books I still cherish today were introduced to me through school…
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