The Lord of the Rings , Alan Lee illustrated Some 20 years ago, my best friend in elementary school introduced me to Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings (1978) animated film. I had already seen, multiple times, Rankin/Bass's The Hobbit (1977) and The Return of the King (1980). I never knew there was a story "between" the two movies I'd seen. In all honesty, I'm not even sure I knew the movies were based on any written story--- as this was BEFORE the world of books really opened up for me. I was a television/movie bug, even scheduled my summer sleeping time around shows that I was desperate to see. Perhaps I can blame Tom Baker's Doctor Who on my chronic insomnia as my local public television station only played those glorious episodes at 1am, and sometimes, horribly, at 2am.... Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings (1978) But, to find out The Lord of the Rings was an animated film I had never seen...and to find out from the same fr