Marc, Niels and Natee essay a new and improved, that is, much more informal, news section, as we follow up on previous items and comment on two new palaeo media releases. This month’s Vintage Dinosaur Art is illustrated with the sculptures of Arthur Hayward and others and is an approach that we at least would very much enjoy seeing a return of in newer publications. Finally, our Lord and Blogmaster, David Orr, makes another very welcome appearance and joins Niels…
Donna Braginetz
As the summer fades and the leaves start falling, nothing better but to sit and listen to the latest episode of the LITC podcast. Marc, Niels and Natee discuss a favourite from the early 90s: Donna Braginetz’ brilliant Dinosaurium, the dream museum in book form. In a not dissimilar vein, Marc and Niels interview Matt Dempsey, whose musculoskeletal dinosaur reconstructions are a great help to palaeoartists everywhere. Lots of discussions about tyrannosaur legs, ornithischian quadrupedality and recreations of Jurassic Park…
As Don and Donna Month draws to a close, what better way to end this series of reviews than with the meanest, baddest, freshest dinosaur of the mid-to-late-nineties? It’s easy to take for granted these days, but back then, the newly-described Utahraptor was a pretty big deal. It was a case of life imitating art. Here we had what was, seemingly, a dead ringer for those oversized movie raptors, except released into the world only months after that movie came…
Welcome back! You may have previously seen me cover the Ornithomimids and Troodon volumes in the Carolrohda Special Dinosaurs Series. As Don and Donna month enters its second month, it’s time to take a break from all those charmingly dated unfeathered ’90s coelurosaurs (don’t worry, they’ll be back) and take a look at a specialized volume of palaeontology and palaeoart that is charmingly dated in a completely different way! Published, again, in 1996, Seismosaurus – The Longest Dinosaur is the…
It’s time for another entry into Don and Donna month, which will take more than a month but time is meaningless. Today, we look at a volume in the mid-90s Carolrhoda dinosaur series on specific dinosaurs, this one focusing on that big-eyed, big-brained, not at all venomous pint-sized predator that looked very different way back when. Sorry Mrs. Newhard, they didn’t do a thorough enough job censoring out your name. As reconstructed by Donna Braginetz, Troodon looks pretty much what…
It’s Don and Donna month here at LITC! I will be reviewing a few volumes in a series of books written by superstar dinosaur author, robot builder, TV presenter and firebrand “Dino” Don Lessem and illustrated by superstar palaeoartist Donna Braginetz. Published by Carolrhoda Books, each of these books is a small but in-depth entry level look at one species (or in this case family) of dinosaur, well researched and richly illustrated. Lessem worked with a few different palaeoartists in…
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…