Poster Pride & Prejudice: case study THE LORD OF THE RINGS

Where we look at one Scorching piece of artwork that generates excitement for what it is advertising. 

Then on the flipside we also have a Torturous piece that makes you wonder how it ever got approval to promote the product...

Over the years The Lord of The Rings by  J.R.R. Tolkien have had many, many reissues; so many in fact that there is a website dedicated to all of Tolkien's books which you can find here.
With so many editions to choose from, where do we start...

The Scorcher

I couldn't help myself, I had to go with the book covers that introduced me to Middle Earth.

This print run came out in 1991.  These were the reissues whose artwork got me hooked.
The Fellowship of the Ring picturing Gandalf and Frodo traipsing through what is undoubtedly fantasy territory sold me straight away.  Then we have the Witch King of Angmar astride his Fellbeast flying towards Minas Morgul adorning the cover of The Two Towers.  Finally there are the defenders standing guard along the walls of Minas Tirith for The Return of the King.  Each cover has artwork that evokes the atmosphere of Middle Earth.
Of course I had no idea that these pictures were depicting characters and places that appear in the stories until after reading the books.  This only increased my appreciation for them upon completion.  The three are all linked together by the simple gold runic bands at the top and bottom of each novel making it a nice little collection when aligned together on a bookshelf.

The Torture

This series that came out some time during the 1980's definitely would not have grabbed my attention in the same way.
How very generic are these illustrations; they could be for any number of fantasy adventure stories.
Why is Gandalf already wearing the white on the first cover?  Dwarf and Elf share a scene on the cover of Two Towers, but you could easily mistake Legolas for a human with that mullet haircut!
And that crown and gown on Aragorn makes him look more like some Christian crusader type for Return of the King.  Very dodgy covers if you ask me.
Alternatively I could have plumped for any of the boring Ring editions that were issued in the 2000's but the ones above are far easier to poke fun at!