A skeletal mount of Ceratosaurus chasing Dryosaurus.

Introducing Sophie!

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There’s a new face on the blog! Sophie has been getting some attention on Twitter with, among other things, her threads on vintage dinosaur books. Of course, it was a matter of time before she found her way here. Please welcome Sophie and come say hi in the comments! – Niels


Hi there, everyone! I’m Sophie, you might know me from my Twitter where I’ve made a name for myself with my enormous threads on old dinosaur art, regular commentary on new dinosaur media, and all the other things that you’ve come to expect from Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs. With a body of work so similar it was only a matter of time before the crack legal team here at the blog came down on me like an asteroid on those poor, unsuspecting dinosaurs we all love so dearly. Thankfully, we found a way to keep things clean. I’m the newest member of the Chasmosaurs team!

Your intrepid author, showing off some lovely Steve Kirk hadrosaurs.

I’ve spent my entire life in a rabid state of Dinomania that began so early that I have no memory of the catalyst. Something to do with a Disney film starring some sort of iguanas? Whatever the source may be, I’ve used my 24 years on Earth accumulating more dinosaur books, films, toys, and other such goods than I’ve ever seen in one place. It’s a veritable dinosaur museum in the Sophie household and the collection grows every day. I’ve settled for sharing my horde on Twitter, but my dream has always been to share it with the Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs audience.

It was more than a decade ago when I, no older than 11, discovered the site and saw that I wasn’t the only person who saw value in the laughably outdated works of the past. There was more to this stuff than just seeing what everyone got wrong, and nowhere online revelled in the wonder of the lost worlds imagined by authors and artists of yesteryear more than here.

Front facing views of Allosaurus and Spinosaurus, with strange and cartoonish proportions

Don’t get me wrong, poking fun at mistakes of the past and the questionably low-effort, tropetastic works by jobbing artists are all part of the fun. There’s only so many positive things you can say about something like these hilarious dino-portraits by the prolific Tony Gibbons.

My contributions to the blog will extend to dinosaur media beyond books; there’s a wealth of untapped potential in the world of old dinosaur video games, films, documentaries, and toys that the blog has rarely touched upon! I’m especially excited to making a regular feature out of covering the documentaries I grew up on.

A selection of tapes of the documentary series "Dinosaur!" each depicting a different dinosaur; Brachiosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Protoceratops, and Archaeopteryx.

Expect a retrospective on the fantastic A&E series “Dinosaur!” hosted by none other than Walter Kronkite as soon as I work out how to photograph a CRT television properly!

I’m lucky to have grown up in the early 2000s; a time just after the release of BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. No other period in history is quite so stuffed with dinosaur media. The incredible quantity of artwork alone produced in the latter half of the 90s and into the early 2000s is an untapped well of material that’s just begging for the VDA treatment, so expect a healthy mix of the new alongside the old from me.

A selection of dinosaur books authored by Don Lessem and illustrated by John Bindon, accompanied by four small plastic dinosaurs.

If you’re a fellow child of that time you’ll likely see lots of familiar material that you might have forgotten. If not, I hope I can introduce you to a wealth of fabulous material you’ve never seen. I hope you all enjoy reading my posts as much as I enjoy writing them. I’ll leave it there for now, but keep an eye out for a new Vintage Dinosaur Art post on a classic of the 80s from me very soon…

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5 Comments

  • Reply
    Niels Hazeborg
    April 11, 2022 at 8:56 am

    My lawyers and I are happy to have you! 😉

  • Reply
    George Starr
    April 12, 2022 at 12:19 pm

    Welcome Sophie! Looking forward to your posts! 🙂

    • Reply
      Sophie
      May 5, 2022 at 12:38 pm

      Thanks, hope you enjoy them!

  • Reply
    Herman Diaz
    May 31, 2022 at 7:42 pm

    Hi Sophie! I like your tweets, especially this one, which reinforces my thinking that Naish/Barrett’s “Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved”, Naish’s “Dinopedia”, & AppleTV+’s “Prehistoric Planet” are basically the holy trinity of modern dino media: https://twitter.com/Sophiesaurus98/status/1517847800406499328

    • Reply
      Sophie
      June 2, 2022 at 4:56 am

      Glad to hear that! Your reviews of dinosaur books have been a favourite of mine for as long as I’ve known of them, you’re a trusted source and have contributed greatly to choosing what I add to my own personal library! Naish’s recent output has really been the gold standard by which all modern dinosaur media should be judged. “Dinosaurs in the Wild” could definitely be included with those three for a similarly plausible vision of the Mesozoic as we currently understand it.

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