Falling very much into that particular sub-category of kiddy fodder dinosaur book in which the animals almost all inhabit parched desertscapes, Now You Can Read About…Dinosaurs was published by Brimax Books in 1984 (with this edition arriving in 1985). For the mid 1980s, it’s pretty much par for the course – a little backward when compared with the full-throttle Dino Renaissance art that was already out there, but hardly much more retrograde than even the Normanpedia. It was books like this…
Described as “a collection of widely differing essays around a central theme,” Before the Ark was published in 1975 by the BBC and “based upon the BBC Television series” of the same name. Said series has seemingly disappeared into complete obscurity, although it does get a mention on Alan Charig’s Wikipedia page, and I also found this listing in the BBC Programme Index. (It’s not on YouTube, though, and if you do try searching for it, you’ll come across an…
Time for another trip to the educational films of the past, and this one is a doozy! 1970’s Dinosaurs: The Age of the Terrible Lizard is an edited English translation of an animated Polish film called Dinozaury, written and directed by Witold Giersz and Ryszard Slapczynski. It was digitized by IU Libraries and made available to the public via Media Collections Online. It was also featured by Rifftrax (available to subscribers). This edit is only 6 minutes long, but is…
Over the years, we (OK, I) have been taken to task on several occasions for sticking the Vintage label on books that aren’t that old and, more to the point, often quite mediocre (or even bad). And as I say every time, it’s because the name of the series stuck. However, here we have one of the oldest things that I’ve covered in quite some time – Stories from Walt Disney’s Fantasia, published in 1940 by Random House. Yes, it’s…
Now here’s something I haven’t covered in a while – a so-so 1980s kids’ book about dinosaurs! And one that rather fails to live up to its title! Amazing World of Dinosaurs, written by Judith Granger and illustrated by Pamela Baldwin Ford, was published back in 1982 (by Troll Associates) but, even for its time, it’s very retrograde. The dinosaurs featured within are very much of the pea-brained, swamp-dwelling variety, and there’s a peculiar emphasis on their low cranial capacity…
It’s time for another trip down scicomm memory lane, courtesy Indiana University’s media collections online. 1971’s “Extinction: A Lesson from the Past” was written by Elizabeth Werrenrath and produced by her husband Reinald Werrenrath, Jr., a television pioneer and son of a famous opera singer. While Reinald passed away at the grand old age of 104 in 2019, Elizabeth is still with us at 108, and she seems to be a heck of a lady. Teetering on the very edge…
Time for a quick one! Here’s a little oddity I found somewhere online. As far as I understand, this was a free givaway at Sinclair petrol stations all the way back in 1934, making this one of the oldest books I’ll probably ever review for LITC. Popular books with original palaeoart are exceedingly rare from this time. The first dinosaur boom, cranked up by the Victorians and recklessly kicked into high gear during the Bone Wars, was sputtering out of…
Slightly late but sure as rain comes the fourteenth episode of the world-famous Chasmosaurs Podcast! Natee, Marc and Niels dive into the Zallinger dynasty, as after covering Rudolph’s famous mural, this time we shine a light on his son Peter Zallinger. Natee interviews Greer Stothers, who has a book coming out called Kaleidoscope of Dinosaurs, a great title for a book. We also have a brief interview with Tom van der Linden, who may just have discovered a new dinosaur!…
Pangaea, The Mother Continent is one of the most unusual books that has ever found its way to me. It has done so by way of Grant Harding, who sent the scans to me, so full props to him. It came out in 1989, a great year for dinosaurs. It was witten by Karen Liptak and illustrated by Susan Steere. Susan Steere is another one of those mysterious figures who can’t be found on Google. As far as I can…
Of late, I’ve been designing a final report for a massive media preservation project at the hallowed institution that keeps the roof above my head, Indiana University. Some of the time I’ve spent scouring our archives for cool visuals has been spent in the online media collection that the initiative established. You can probably imagine my Spielbergian, slack-jawed reaction when on a gloomy December day I stumbled upon… dinosaurs. Produced by KETC out of St. Louis, this is a nice…
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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.