Regular readers (we have some, right?) will be aware that our sole criterion for a book’s inclusion in Vintage (=Old) Dinosaur Art is that it be 20 years old. Consequently, books from the early 2000s have now entered our purview. It was a time when, in the wake of Walking With Dinosaurs, publishers demanded increasing numbers of CG creations in lieu of more traditional illustrations and model photography. Dorling Kindersley (aka DK) very much followed this trend, inserting very dodgy…
Compsognathus
The most well-known Golden Book to feature dinosaurs is undoubtedly The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs, also released in the guise of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals (which was the edition I happened to review on this blog, back before some of you were born, probably). So memorable was that Zallinger-illustrated classic that Robert Bakker and Luis Rey deemed it worthy of a remake, published in 2013. Besides that, there was of course the very memorable Little Golden Book, packed…
And it’s a proper Vintage Dinosaur Art as today, we’re looking at a rather obscure collection of paleoart from the very beginning of the 20th century. Let’s lay down some groundwork. Collectable cards are of all ages. In my youth, in the schoolyard we would have traded, and beat each other senseless over, Pokémon cards (a fine tradition that continues to this day), or football cards (maybe baseball cards if you’re in the US?). Sometimes, there’s a fad around dinosaur…
Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs (St. Martin’s Press) – Part 1
Vintage Dinosaur Art September 19, 2023You know how we’re always reviewing books that are so big that our scanners have trouble with them? We always have to scrape our images together from two, sometimes four, separate scans. It’s getting tiresome. Let’s do a small book. I found a book that is absolutely teeny tiny, smaller than my hand. Scanning this one was no trouble at all, look. The scan probably appears bigger on your screen than the real thing. I’ve said nothing at all about…
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…
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…
Vintage Dinosaur Art: The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs (1988) – Part 1
Vintage Dinosaur Art July 7, 2021Here’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 –…
Funny story, this one. As a science educator, I visit primary schools all over the country, and I often can’t resist scanning their school libraries for dinosaur books. Most of the time, I run into these awful late-2000’s stock-CGI schlockfests, but last week, I hit paydirt. A beautifully illustrated German-made children’s book from the late 80s, well-worn by the tough love of so many children’s hands. As one of the teachers saw me gushing, she actually offered to give the…
The fifth episode of the LITC podcast is here, in which the team ventures off the beaten path into more unusual forms of palaeoart. We discuss a volume of vintage dinosaur art that was ahead of its time in its blending of photography and illustration. For our interview, Natee talks to Rebecca Groom, whose hand-crafted soft toys of underrepresented animals, both living and extinct, have won her many admirers. Featuring rainbows and unicorns and an exclusive poetry reading by Natee.…
Happy New Year! Last month, I promised you I’d take an in-depth look at the dinosaur designs from The Land Before Time, and I’m still going to, but life, uh, got in the way (not least because there was a podcast to edit). Today, to cleanse the palate, I’m going to give you something small and quick and dirty and a little bit ridiculous. This is a book I found in my attic. It’s dusty, slightly battered from years of…