Having done the obligatory theropods, it’s time to take a second look at The Strange World of Dinosaurs, one of those dinosaur books where the author – John Ostrom – is considerably more well-known than the artist. Joseph Sibal’s pencil illustrations, printed in either red or green, are competent and lush and amusingly of their time, but also highly derivative of older artists, especially Burian and Parker. Let’s see if Ostrom and Sibals’ herbivores are as exciting and forward-thinking as…
1960s
The year is 1964 and, although he doesn’t know it yet, Yale palaeontologist John H. Ostrom is about to make history. In the summer of that year, he will embark on an expedition to Montana where he will make some remarkable discoveries. Five years later, he will be publishing one of the most game-changing papers in the history of dinosaur palaeontology: the scientific description of Deinonychus antirrhopus. It will mark the beginning of a complete revolution in how we see…
Здравствуйте, comrades! Today, we are going to sneak past the Iron Curtain to see what the palaeoartists in the USSR were getting up to! Let’s get the obligatory joke out of the way first: in Mother Russia, dinosaur art review YOU! Ever since Zoë Lescaze’s monolithic book Paleoart came out, reviewed by me here, we’ve been wisening up to the fact that some of the most interesting Vintage Dinosaur Art was being produced under the Soviet regime. And no Soviet…
Here’s a rather unusual book, so much so that, ever since I aquired it, I’ve been referring to it as “the weird book”. My translated copy is called “De Ontwikkeling der Aarde” (“the development of Earth”) but I believe its original English title to be The Ages of the Earth. It’s a book about geology, one in a 1960’s book series on science, authored by one Michael Dempsey (not the actor, I assume) and one David Larkin. It hails from…
Last time, 65 million years ago, we looked at the marvellous illustrations by the great Maidi Wiebe in Daniel Q. Posin’s book What Is A Dinosaur (no question mark). We ‘ve already covered the theropods, in tried and true LITC fashion, so now it’s time to take a look at all them other dinosaurs. We’re firmly in the 1960’s, so expect lots of swamp dwelling slowpokes… but thanks to the artist’s pedigree, there’s some nice surprises, as well! Here’s a…
So here’s a book that was sent to me by fellow Brit Mark Hollowell (thanks!) – some time ago, actually. I had meant to review it sooner – I’d scanned all the images and uploaded them and everything – but then a lot of Stuff happened. I mean, Doom Eternal came out, and once you’ve got a certain way through that, there’s simply nothing else you want to do with your time. But I digress. Here, at last, is Prehistoric…
What Is A Dinosaur is a small, short book from 1961, in a series of “What Is It” books, explaining scientific concepts to children. It was illustrated by Maidi Wiebe and written by Daniel Q. Posin, a Chicago-based physicist and a well-known tevelvision personality in his time. Despite that pedigree, the book is your typical, child’s first rough guide to dinosaurs. We’ve seen dozens of books like this, of course. Small books for children, containing all the dinosaur factoids we’ve…