In 1976 "Plop!", DC's oddly titled "New Magazine of Weird Humour" published a #LOTR parody by comic hero Wally Wood entitled "The King of the Ring". It was short, sweet with excellent retro art and jokes which verge from great to awful. Sit back and enjoy (kind of) (1) #Tolkien
Page 1 kicks off with Gondeaf the wizard arriving at the Georgian-styled home of Froydo the "Habbit". Notice how 1960s hippy favourite Wood is still down with the kids with his anachronistic use of "Gee whizz!" and "Wow!". The pizza joke is still pretty good though (2) #Tolkien
Page 2 introduces the Ring in excellent style ("if you became evil...it wouldn't matter!") and gives us an added poke at Disney in the shape of a Hobbit/Fellowship mash-up version of the Seven Dwarfs. There's also Snyder, an incognito Strider lookalike in shades (3) #Tolkien
Page 3 and the quality of the humour takes a plummet downwards as the journey takes in ex-Ringbearer Glum and an ill-advised kissing episode. Wood salvages something at the end however, revealing a Nork and the truth behind the breaking of Andúril (4) #Tolkien
Page 4 kicks off with my favourite bad joke as Froydo blasts the Nork with his magnum. Gondeaf then attempts to palantír-call "evil wizard" Souron with fairly amusing results. Not sure about the Nazighouls, but good to see the sinister Daffy Duck at the back...(5) #Tolkien
Page 5 is my favourite visually as Wood brings in Shelob's cousin Schlob, kills her with a well-aimed pizza then flies everyone to a volcano in Mirdere. Note the smoke-belching factories sporting the names of German steel and chemical companies. Allegory? Don't tell #Tolkien (6)
Page 6 and its the final showdown as Froydo happily pushes Glum and Ring into the flames. After a Castle Bravo style explosion Wood finishes up with one of his best #Tolkien jokes - evil Gondeaf gets the Ring, zaps Snyder and vanishes. Overall, for me, its a 7/10 Wally Wood (7)
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