Who is the author and the proper way to combine these editions?

[Paul]

Recently I added J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to Goodreads. It's a Fotonovel adaptation of Ralph Bakshi's animated Lord of the Rings movie. The book doesn't specify an author, just has the movie credits inside, so I put Tolkien down as the author.

Today I stumbled across this Der Herr der Ringe: Filmroman, das Buch zum Film mit 400 Fotos which would appear to be the German edition of the same book. However the German book lists Bakshi as the author.

Since I think the two should be combined, what do people think should be the author format for the book?

[Lobstergirl]

As that is an adaptation, not the original work, Tolkien should not be the first author. I don't know precisely what a "fotonovel" is but it's probably not the same thing as a graphic novel, which has a fairly specific definition. Does a fotonovel use film stills as illustrations? Does it have text, what is the text?

See if this worldcat entry matches up with the book:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/lord-of...

[Paul]

Fotonovels use screen grabs from film and TV the same way a graphic novel uses drawn images. The text is still grouped with the speaker with a line going to them (rather than a "voice balloon").

The book does match up with the Worldcat entry though.

[Lobstergirl]

So the film script is reproduced exactly, just corresponding with each still image? Or is it an abridgement?

[Cait]

There was probably an adapter who was in charge of abridging dialogue and selecting stills, and if we had this person's name they ought to be listed as primary. Since we don't, the screenplay authors are probably the best bet for the primary slot.

[vicki_girl]

Wiki link for photonovels (for those who are curious):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photonovel

These types of books do not reproduce the script exactly, but are as Cait said, an adaption of the script into a type of comic book/grahic novel. The following link has some images showing what they look like:

http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/201...

I think "Fotonovel" was a trademark of a specific company. In this particular case, I would probably put Fotonovel Publications as the primary author, listed as "adapter".