Russian sci-fi woodcuts.

Surfing for woodcuts, I found this phenomenal series: one-picture summaries of various science fiction movies. This one, obviously, "Star Wars." They're by Andrei Kuznetsov and they are all wonderful.


Here's another one, clearly "Lord of the Rings." But I was so perplexed by its Russian title, Plastilin Ovetz.

The web is wonderful! Somebody at Metafilter had complained about the Babelfish translation of this title:

I refuse to believe that "Lord of the Rings" can be translated into Russian and back into English and come out as "Plasticine of the Sheep." I'm sorry, but I just can't accept it.

Here is the explanation:

What happened is that the title was the artist's pun (in Russian) on the actual movie name.

"Lord of the rings" in Russian reads as "Vlastelin kolets"

"Vlastelin colets" is phonetically similar to "Plastilin ovets"

"Plastilin ovets" is indeed "Plasticine of the sheep" when translated into English, although "Sheep silly putty" might be a more appropriate, if freer, translation.