It’s 2023, and we have a rule here. It’s an arbitrary rule, but here we are: We count everything as “vintage” that is 20 years old or older. That means, try not to die of shock here, that everything up to 2003 is now eligible for a Vintage Dinosaur Art review. Them’s the breaks. A whole new millennium is opening up for us! Now, when I think of what dinosaur books look like in the 21st century, I mostly think…
A big one for our twentieth, as today we discuss what is, so far, probably the most influential palaeoart book of the 21st centruy: the seminal All Yesterdays, by John Conway, Memo Kosemen and Darren Naish, which came out ten years ago (insert obligatory reference to how old we are). The book is famously full of outlandish and speculative takes on dinosaurs andotherprehistoricanimals and shook up the palaeoart world like a whirlwind… but does it hold up now? In anticipation…
This must be one of those ‘how in the Jack Horner haven’t we covered it yet?’ books – The World of Dinosaurs, published in 1977 by Book Club Associates (“by arrangement with Weidenfeld and Nicholson”) and written by Michael Tweedie. Just when you think you’ve exhausted every post-1970, chunky, full-colour illustrated dinosaur encyclopedia, up pops another one. And it’s quite something, boasting artwork featuring a wide range of prehistoric animals – although predominantly dinosaurs, of course – mostly provided by…
It’s time for the eleventh episode of the famous LITC podcast! Today, Marc, Niels and Natee discuss perhaps the single most influential book of dinosaur art in the entire world: Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, by one Gregory S. Paul ™. Marc interviews Friend Of The Blog Steve White about his upcoming compendium of Mesozoic Art, his new, gruesome alphabet book, and of course his legendary work for Dinosaurs! Magazine and the wilderness years that followed. In the news, Niels…
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…
Here’s a book that feels like it could’ve come straight out of my childhood, although in reality the first time I ever saw it was just a few weeks ago. Published in 1988 by Western Publishing under the Golden Book banner, it is (at least, in name) a direct successor to a Zallinger-illustrated classic. In much the same way as Zallinger’s work is nostalgic for so many people of an older generation, the illustrations here – by Christopher Santoro –…
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…
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…
They say you can tell a lot about a person from looking at their bookshelf, and recently I found out that my friend Bas was the kind of person who had a dinosaur book from the nineties that I hadn’t seen yet. Those are the best kind of people. Bas has good memories of his childhood dinosaur phase and of this book in particular. Of course, I just had to borrow it, and since an opportunity to return it is…
Who doesn’t love a bit of Steve Kirk? I’ve featured his work numerous times on LITC over the years – both here and over on version 1.0 – and I simply can’t get enough. Imagine my delight, then, when I found hitherto unseen Kirkwork in a book for sale in an Oxfam bookshop on Blatchington Road, Hove, just a short walk from where I live. And priced at just 49 pence! Not even this book’s clear designation as being For…
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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.