1 Alvissa: {looking down from a hill to a small town in the distance} There's the town of Footcrag!
2 Lambert: Phew, am I happy to see that. I'm glad this quest is nearly over. It's been exhausting.
3 Alvissa: Um, Lambert, we've barely begun. We haven't even reached the Orcrift Mountains yet.
4 Lambert: What?! It feels like forever! Who ever thought a quest could be so interminably long?!
4 Alvissa: You haven't read Tolkien, have you?

As much as it's a rollicking good story, I find the Lord of the Rings interminably long-winded and difficult to read.

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2014-11-11 Rerun commentary: I've read all the way through The Lord of the Rings twice. Once when I was at university I forced myself to struggle through the pages. And then years later when the Peter Jackson films came out, I forced myself once again to read each book before the respective film was released. It felt easier the second time through, and I suppose if I tried reading it again now it would be less of a chore again. My main issue is I have so many other things I want to do!

It looks like I put some ruins in the background of the shots used for this comic. I believe that was probably inspired by the visual imagery of Jackson's movies. In particular the bits where the Fellowship is wandering through the wilderness, and they happen to pass some ancient ruins that speak of long-ago civilisations who once lived in the area.

I'll grant that the books are classics, and have inspired generations of fantasy authors and readers. But for me, at least, the visual imagery of the movies added a wonderful new dimension to Tolkien's work.

As much as I enjoy writing, I think I am a more visual composer than a crafter of words. Thus the fact that I love making comics and doing photography. I love putting little cinematic touches into my visual compositions, adding details that you might not notice consciously, but which add up to set a mood or tell a story in pictures that is conveyed more subtly than words.

A picture is worth a thousand words. I only wish I'd made enough pictures to total one-thousandth of the number of words I have written.