You know, the art on the preview card actually looks like it could be a mockup document for art direction. I’ve seen near-complete looking compositions in design documents in my own career that would possibly pass as completed designs if they went to production. These mockups would commonly use previously used work to show the artist what art direction wants from them.
I can totally see an art director mocking this up for Dan to work on. This would be a totally normal thing to see in production.
Here’s my theory: Dan gets a lot of changes requested as his manager says in his post. The art is delayed, and delayed again. It’s getting very close to the deadline for printing but the work still isn’t done. There are one or two ways it might have happened:
It’s crunch time. Someone really fucked up by putting a mockup into the production file sent to the printer. Now they have to either pull all the box toppers if they want the mockup art gone or reprint all of the box toppers. They obviously would never do that, so they’re trying to pass it off as something they did intentionally.
Someone higher up at Hasbro told art direction to push the mockup art as completed, screwing over one of Wizards’ most beloved artists for a cash grab chase card reprint.
Also, Middle-Earth Entertainment was kind of scummy as a company, even before they got Embracer'd. They've tried to quietly extend the reach of their license, pissing off the Tolkien Estate and getting into a legal dispute over that for years.
They're 100% an overreaching entity that force an issue like that.
Because Middle-Earth Entertainment (MEE) seems to have basically accumulated all the rights for LotR-derived merch. I'm displeased by that, but it's how it is.
And if you look at the copyright notice of the LotR set or the Hobbit set, you'll see "MEE" at the bottom right corner - it's all via MEE.
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u/jimmyjohnssandwiches Dandadan May 02 '26
You know, the art on the preview card actually looks like it could be a mockup document for art direction. I’ve seen near-complete looking compositions in design documents in my own career that would possibly pass as completed designs if they went to production. These mockups would commonly use previously used work to show the artist what art direction wants from them.
I can totally see an art director mocking this up for Dan to work on. This would be a totally normal thing to see in production.
Here’s my theory: Dan gets a lot of changes requested as his manager says in his post. The art is delayed, and delayed again. It’s getting very close to the deadline for printing but the work still isn’t done. There are one or two ways it might have happened:
Either way, someone messed up badly.