Stephen King Cover Artist Shares 44-Year-Old Lord of the Rings Gollum Interpretation

Stephen King cover artist Michael Whelan shares his own 44-year-old interpretation of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. First introduced in The Hobbit, Gollum was a Stoor hobbit formerly known as Sméagol who was corrupted and twisted by the power of One Ring and transformed into a wretched creature. In Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, Gollum was portrayed through motion capture and voiced by Andy Serkis.

Stephen King cover artist Michael Whelan shares his own 44-year-old interpretation of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. First introduced in The Hobbit, Gollum was a Stoor hobbit formerly known as Sméagol who was corrupted and twisted by the power of One Ring and transformed into a wretched creature. In Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, Gollum was portrayed through motion capture and voiced by Andy Serkis.

On X, formerly known as Twitter, artist and illustrator Michael Whelan shared his own interpretation of Gollum from Lord of the Rings which he originally did in 1979. Check it out below:

Before Jackson’s trilogy, Gollum appeared in previous adaptations, including some from around the time that Whelan created his own interpretation. This includes the animated adaptations of The Hobbit and Return of the King from 1977 and 1980, in which Gollum was voiced by Brother Theodore, and Ralph Bakshi’s animated Lord of the Rings from 1978, in which he was voiced by Peter Woodthorpe. However, due to his exceptionally unsettling performance and pioneering work in motion capture technology – in combination with the sheer popularity of Jackson’s trilogy – Serkis is the definitive version of Gollum that most people think of.

Serkis is widely regarded as the definitive Gollum even though Whelan’s interpretation and others may be more visually accurate. In The Hobbit, Tolkien describes Gollum as a creature who essentially lives in a cave, and over the years, his eyes adapted to the dark and became “lamp-like,” a physical attribute that Whelan’s interpretation captures perfectly and Serkis’ version noticeably lacks. However, for almost the entirety of Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gollum is outside his natural cave habitat, which is likely why they decided to omit this aspect of the character’s appearance.