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…
Due to illness, we missed an episode of the podcast, but we are back on track with the episode recorded in April! This time, Dr. Mark Witton takes us back to what might be the first large-scale expression of palaeoart in 3D: The dinosaurs at the Geological Court at Crystal Palace Park! Tying in with his new book with Ellinor Michel, he tells us all about their history, their surprising influence and their uncertain future. Also, a lot of unashamed…
George Solonevich is one my favorite artists covered at LITC. His work stands out during an era of paleoart that saw so many artists copying Knight and Burian. I’ve long planned to do a “golden oldie” post on him, and today I’m finally marking that off the to-do list. I initially wrote a brief post about him in 2010, which Marc followed up in more fleshed-out form a few years later (part one and two). The bulk of today’s post…
I love a good alphabet book. The fact that the author has to find one animal for each letter inevitably means they have to make a lot of choices. Some letters have lots of candidates – Do we put Tyrannosaurus or Triceratops under ‘T”? – which means painful cuts need to be made. Other letters, like Q and Z, only have some deeply obscure taxa that you wouldn’t otherwise see in a mainstream dinosaur book. At the same time, the…
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…
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…
While I’ve found a great deal of blog fodder on eBay, it’s always immeasurably more pleasurable to spot a book in person, out there in the wild. As it happens, my friend Huseyin actually found this one, amid the glorious chaos of the aptly-named Raining Books shop here in Brighton. Originally published in 1982 in Italian, with this English translation arriving in 1987, The Prehistoric World was written by Giorgio P Panini and illustrated by a variety of artists, most…
Time for another round of The Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs. No, not that one – the one from 1988, written by Mary Elting and illustrated by Christopher Santoro. As an aside, I didn’t say too much about Santoro last time, and I probably should have. He’s an accomplished and much-lauded illustrator of children’s books with (as of today) over 30 years’ experience (as per a number of near-identical bios that appear on various publishers’ websites, like HarperCollins). He’s not…
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…
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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.