Today’s entry is rather similar in concept to the later Dinosaur Park, which I reviewed back in 2020, but quite unlike the DK ACTION PACK (in spite of the rather similar title). It would appear to be a straightforward book at first glance, but upon opening an instruction is immediately given to prise out the staples and then remove all the pages. What’s this, a book that wants you to destroy it?! Of course not – well, sort of, actually,…
After covering Konstantin Flyorov a few monts ago, I found there to be a lot of interest in vintage Russian palaeoart. There was a small but very interesting palaeoart scene in Soviet-era Moscow, linked to its tradition of animal and wildlife art, that is stylistically quite distinct from the western tradition. Today, I want to give some attention to the original Russian palaeoartist: Vasily Alekseyevic Vatagin (Василий Алексеевич Ватагин, 1883 – 1969). Vatagin was a world traveller, a keen student…
I check the copyright page, and I check it again. 1993? Really? Surely that can’t be true. Surely this book is at least fifteen years newer than that. But no. The proof is right there, undeniable, clear as day. What sorcery is this? Who stole a time machine? How is this book so good? That year again, that fateful year. 1993. The Year of the Dinosaur, according to ancient astrology that I made up. The deluge of dino books from…
In LITC’s latest podcast release, Natee, Marc and Niels tackle one of the most often ridiculed works in palaeoart history: the famously idiosyncratic Archosauria by John McLoughlin. Of course, we need to talk about that Triceratops… but there is so much more to this book, some of it crazy, some of it beautiful, much of it downright visionary. Natee interviews palaeoartist Cameron Clow, and things quickly devolve into a horse girl geekout. In the news, there’s baby theropods nomming on…
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…
Pop-up dinosaur books are always fun (if rare, although I’ve managed to get my hands on a few in the past) – there’s nothing quite like a satisfyingly well-executed bit of paper engineering. What we have here is something in the same vein, but with a rather entertaining twist. In Dinosaur Park, beautifully painted backdrops have pop-out foregrounds that form something of a stage – an empty stage. That’s because the papercraft members of the cast are all waiting in…
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Chasmosaurus belli silhouette in custom bulleted list by Scott D. Sampson, Mark A. Loewen, Andrew A. Farke, Eric M. Roberts, Catherine A. Forster, Joshua A. Smith, and Alan L. Titus, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sourced from PhyloPic.