Thank You

In the states, today is Thanksgiving. It's a time of year when the paleo corner of social media lights up with references to the dinosaurian lineage of Meleagris gallopavo. My contribution is this minimalist illustration of a vaguely deinonychosaurian theropod, inspired by a female Wild Turkey. I want to take a moment to thank the readers of Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs, the commenters, the sharers of links, and those of you who have kindly shared scans of old dinosaur books with us.

I would also like to personally thank Marc Vincent, Asher Elbein, and Niroot Puttapipat for their writings here; when I began school again I desperately wanted to keep LITC going, and because of the terrific writing of my co-bloggers, it is doing better than ever - perhaps not as frequently updated as before, but I am proud of the writing we share here, and I look forward to the day when I can pitch in at my pre-MFA studies level.

At any rate. Thank you.

The Return of Devil Dinosaur!

Once, long ago, a very brilliant man created a dinosaur for Marvel Comics. He painted it red, bestowed on it the gift of variable anatomy, and sent it on wild adventures that even today still quiver with childish insanity. But the audience faded away, and this monster, this Devil Dinosaur, faded away with them.

Then lots of things happened. If you don't read Marvel Comics, they won't make sense. If you do read Marvel Comics, they still won't make sense. It's really best not to worry about them. You could seek out Fallen Angels or Heroes for Hire, but that would only distract you from reading what may be the best Marvel comic to ever have a dinosaur in it.

I am referring, of course, to  Warren Ellis's Nextwave.

These are not the dinosaurs. They are bonus dinosaurs.

Imagine a radical guitar solo, somehow transcribed on paper through the medium of costumed pretty people hitting things, freed from the cruel shackles of continuity, character or sanity. Five minor Marvel characters, rejects and C-list superheroes, running through the dusty toy chests of Marvel intellectual property, seeking to stop the terrorist Beyond Corporation from product testing WMDs on the American populace. What evil mastermind could be behind this diabolical plot to destroy humanity? Who is responsible for the Samurai Gundam, the dragon with a pants fetish, and weaponized koalas? Who stands ready to be revealed as the greatest supervillain of all time?

Who indeed. 

I'm not sure what prompted Warren Ellis to chose Devil Dinosaur for the role of criminal mastermind, but I strongly suspect it was for the sole purpose of this image. There's something sublime in the juxtaposition of smoking jacket, ascot, pistol and fang. What better to symbolize the heights of patrician villainy? This incarnation of Devil Dinosaur is more then just old money. He is the oldest money. See the insouciance with which the pistol dangles from his tiny claws! See that plutocratic sneer arch over yellowing fangs! Devil Dinosaur is every inch the corrupt status quo, looming in aristocratic snobbery over the peons of the earth. A leftover from the Gilded Age...of Reptiles.

And as befits a patrician supervillain, he is also crazy racist.

In fact, this incarnation of Devil Dinosaur has something of a complex about monkeys. Perhaps it stems from the self loathing that comes from dressing in monkey-created smoking jackets, sipping monkey-created champagne, and waving around giant monkey-created pistols. "Stop making ideas!" he snarls at the superheroes. Ideas are antithetical to this denizen of the past. Like all aristocracy, Devil Dinosaur creates nothing. He merely lounges on the work of others, hating himself for doing so and proudly boasting of the paradise that will come when all of the underclasses are gone.

True freedom, posits Nextwave, can only be achieved by overthrowing the parasitic dinosaurian plutocracy and thwarting its evil designs on the common man. The only way to stop him, as with all corrupt aristocrats, is to kick his spherical mansion off of its floating war platform, let it bounce off the mountain below, and then explode.

Sic Semper Tyrannus, Devil Dinosaur.

He Was The Mightiest Of All!

This is The World That Was.

Volcanoes belch gobbets of lava into the permanent twilight, their Olympian fires raging above the steaming jungles, and amidst the shadowed tree trunks shamble a swarm of horrors. Strange cries echo through the twisting undergrowth, a deafening cacophony out of the deepest antediluvian hell. Every thing that lives, everything that breathes, hums with the same primal madness. Red skies above. Red blood below. Red, red, red, in bone and tooth and claw.

And then, silence. The volcano casts its red glow against the sky. The horrors recede, skulking backwards into the dark, their staring eyes wide and expectant. And out from the shadows, coming on gargantuan legs, tiny arms tucked against his craggy chest, teeth bared, eyes blazing, comes the reddest one of all.

It's a Tyrannosaurus. Yet it barely resembles the living creature that once stalked the world. It is instead something grander and stranger, an Ur-Tyrannosaur, the idea of the beast made flesh. A Devil Dinosaur.

Fast forward several million years and hop a few dimensions over. It is some time in the early 1970's, and Jack Kirby, the renowned king of comics, has begun playing with an idea. Creator or co-creator of heroes like Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, Iron Man, and the Fantastic Four, Kirby has been in something of a slump. For years he's been occupied with "The World That's Coming," beginning in the pages of DC Comics' OMAC and culminating in his post-apocalyptic serial Kamandi. But DC is going through troubled times--series being canceled left and right, explosive fights between editorial and the publisher. The bombast of the 60's is dying, and DC lurches toward social consciousness and hard traveling heroes. Mad ideas are out. Strange worlds are over. Comics are for grownups, these days.

But Jack Kirby isn't interested in realism. Short, bespectacled, a cigar smoldering in his mouth, he's always dreamed of wilder things. So he returns to Marvel Comics, to the company that he helped build, his restless mind already turning to a different subject. He pitches them a new series, one that explores the savage madness the distant past. A time when the earliest men still walked in the shadow of the dinosaur.

Devil Dinosaur #1 debuts in April 1978. On the cover, Devil Dinosaur charges forward, his tiny human hands clutching, yellow eyes blazing with a mad light. The hairy Killer-Folk cower in fear, their torches and spears dwarfed by the reptilian rage that speeds toward them with the force of a hurricane. On his back, Moon Boy's arms rise toward the sky, silently pushing his companion on. A boy and his dinosaur striking out against the world that hates and fears them: Vintage Marvel at its finest.

But even with the ever explosive Kirby at the reins, the first issue is surprisingly low on mad ideas--despite the impossibility of man and dinosaur truly living side by side, Kirby chooses to depict the setting with some restraint. In the back of the issue, he preemptively defends himself against charges of inaccuracy. Perhaps it is possible, he argues, for a world such as he has created to exist. "After all," he writes in the back-matter, "just where the Dinosaur met his end, and when Man first stood reasonably erect, is still shrouded in mystery."

From anybody else, this would be a ludicrous assertion. But the world Kirby is creating, like every world he has created, transcends mere fact. The world of Devil Dinosaur is a feverish pulp of television and comics and drive-in movies, as distinct from the real world as T. rex from a toy. No dinosaur skeleton could ever fit inside Devil Dinosaur's grotesque body. No prehistoric forest ever burned with the spatters of energy that Kirby inks over every vista. Reality and evidence are hindrances to a mind like Kirby's. It's clear that even pseudo-scientific speculation isn't enough to restrain him for long.

And it doesn't. Barely two issues have passed before the horizons of Devil Dinosaur's prehistoric world expand into stranger epochs. The spider god of the Killer-Folk. The valley of the malevolent ants. A prehistoric giant clad in ragged fur and a triceratops skull, swinging a stegosaurus like a club. There is talk of an animated spin-off, a television show for children. It's a natural transition--Devil Dinosaur is a child's id writ large across cheap paper, insane and logic-defying and gloriously energetic.

But even that's not enough. Kirby's pen takes Devil Dinosaur onward, upward, outward; attacking aliens, strange technology, Kirby krackle star-beasts of Lovecraftian size, the very cosmos taking life in a sea of staring eyes and claws and seething power. The World That Was and The World That's Coming are beginning to blend together. Devil Dinosaur goes into space. Devil Dinosaur magically rampages through the distant future of 1978. Devil Dinosaur stands supreme.

December 1978. Devil Dinosaur is canceled. The art is too stylized and strange, the writing too uneven and clunky. Comics buyers are ignoring it in droves. Low sales, that impossible enemy, do to the red giant what rival monsters and jet-pack aliens never could. Devil Dinosaur #9 is the last issue. The hoped-for animated spin-off never arrives.  A crossover between Devil Dinosaur and Godzilla is plotted in a last-ditch attempt to drum up some interest, but it comes and goes with nary a ripple.

Kirby moves on. It's what he does; he's had too many series canceled out from under him to weep over one more. Bereft of their creator's pen, Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy are left rudderless in the backwaters of Marvel's continuity. The World That Was withers, a discarded toy in Marvel's toy-box, to be plucked out and desultorily played with and then cast back and forgotten. One more occasional guest star and another casualty of the changing comics industry. Too strange. Too weird. Comics are for grown ups, these days.

But for nine insane, glorious issues, Devil Dinosaur was the mightiest of all.

Next Time! The many faces of Devil Dinosaur! Random adventures! Smoking jackets! 

Dinosaur Art: 'Time Machine Enough'

I am at a considerable disadvantage, following up David, Marc and Asher. Not only am I in possession of an inferior brain to those of the authors of this blog, I also happen not to have a copy of Dinosaur Art to hand, and am having to rely largely on my recollection of leafing through this gorgeous book from when Marc kindly shared his copy with me.

Given its title, I had initially imagined the book to be not dissimilar to Dinosaur Imagery in presenting almost a miscellany of renowned names in contemporary palaeo art. I was pleasantly surprised to learn of its focus on just ten artists, which affords a more in-depth look at their oeuvre and methods, as the others have already pointed out. This was especially welcome to me as an illustrator myself. On the purported premise of its featuring the very best in the genre, however, no doubt everyone will have their own quibbles as to who was left out of this exalted group. And in this, I have to agree with David that the absence of Mark Hallet and Michael Skrepnik is a notable one.

Ra�l Mart�n; Sauropods

Of the ten represented though, it heartens me to see that there does seem to be a degree of variety in terms of style and approach, and to see what might be regarded as 'newer' names in the palaeo art world sitting alongside the long-established greats. I confess at once that Robert Nicholls and John Conway, for instance, were artists whom I had only discovered within the last year or so. It is refreshing to contrast the latter's more stylised but highly atmospheric -- sometimes even elegiac -- digital illustrations with the exquisitely detailed and resolutely traditional gouache paintings of John Sibbick (to whom I kowtow); or to see two quite differing sides of the same coin in the works of Todd Marshall and Luis Rey, both of whom relish the opportunities for dramatic perspectives, postures, and wilder speculative features in their animals. Whilst Douglas Henderson's 'truly artistic approach to paleoart' breathtakingly ravishes every scientific and aesthetic sensibility with his evocative landscapes, convincingly populated by fauna. I do take Asher's point that the greater weight does still tend to fall on the naturalistic or photo-realistic approaches on the whole, and fully agree that the inclusion of William Stout would have added yet another facet of this world to this gem of a book.

Todd Marshall; Kaprosuchus

Allow me, if you will, a brief moment of self-indulgence from the perspective of a traditional artist. I readily admit that I myself am guilty of the 'hand-wringing' which David mentioned with regard to digital media changing the craft. The exquisite watercolours and coloured pencil pieces of  Julius Csotonyi were what made me fall in love with his work in the first place, and as much as I admire his stunningly wrought digital paintings, I lament that they seem to have supplanted his traditional work both in actual terms and insofar as they are represented in this book. A watercolour of Einosaurus is the sole instance of this here. I should so much have preferred several more in lieu of one or two of his less successful combinations of photography and digital painting.

Julius Cstonyi; Brachylophosaurus. Awarded The Lanzendorf PaleoArt Prize for Two-Dimensional Art (2010) by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology

I do agree with Marc that a little more light could have been shed on some of the decisions for certain idiosyncratic features the artists gave to their depictions. Though the whole science and art of restoration are so broad that I see how difficult these would be to bring into each interview, and one which would be better served by focusing on an individual work in its entirety than by random questions in amongst each section. But this would require many more pages and much more expense. For me, the 'highlight taxon' for each artist as mentioned by David suffices comparatively well enough in this effort for the book's purposes. I also recall that at least one blog reader was concerned that more is not made of dinosaur lives and evolution itself; but this, too, would be to make even more of an attempt to be 'all things to all readers', as Asher aptly pointed out.

My overall opinion, however, is quite simple: secure yourself a copy of this book with what despatch you may! Of its production values, I have little else to add. As has already been mentioned, the quality of the printing is sterling and the book is a treasure, appealing fully to the bibliophile and the dinosaur art lover in me. I even had to remonstrate with Marc regarding his customary cavalier handling of books when he brought his copy along. Even if does not, indeed, quite succeed in being all things to all readers, what it does offer in terms of insight into the artists' processes together with the wealth and quality of the images ought to earn it a place on the bookshelf of any dinosaur enthusiast of whatever degree.

Blackgang Chine: Part 2: The old Triassic Club

In addition to its vintage 'Dinosaurland', Blackgang Chine has one other major Mesozoic-themed attraction. Much like the giant, brightly-coloured fibreglass mushrooms (occasionally with faces) that dot the hillside in various areas of the park, it is quite delightfully unhinged. Step right this way!

The Triassic Club was first 'discovered' in 1994, following a major landslide that necessitated the relocation of several major attractions (including a replica cowboy town). As is usual at Blackgang, the premise is explained by way of a pleasingly silly rhyme.

Lots of people have drawn dinosaurs in rather gentlemanly outfits, presumably because it's a vision that never ceases to be hilarious. Blackgang went one better, and stocked the Triassic Club with full-size robot beasts decked out in formal finery. Guests are greeted by Wallace, the butler, who complains witheringly about the master's demanding nature. He also requests that you kindly weigh yourself on a set of scales that denote which course of the feast you are most suited to becoming.

Once weighed, it's time to move on to the next room where the master awaits! He introduces himself as Darwin the Allosaurus - "whom some have the cheek to call the 'other lizard'" - and intones in a louche, aristocratic manner that his guests "sssmell sssscrumptioussss". Requesting that the starter come forward, he nevertheless rejects the notion of eating any vegetarians, explaining that they tend to stick in his teeth.

At a nearby piano - and apparently enjoying a hearty ale - is Oscar, whose wide-eyed, stern facial expression is just priceless. When realising that his drawling, salivating monologue isn't winning his guests over to the idea of becoming lunch, Darwin laments that he'll have to sing for his supper again. And so Oscar strikes a chord...

(You might have to turn your volume up a bit, sorry!)


I've always enjoyed this attraction. Except when I was a small child, when the idea of a leering, toothy dinosaur speaking in a haughty aristocratic accent scared the hell out of me. Granted, the animatronics are hardly Disney-calibre, but then it wasn't made on that kind of budget (and it's getting old). One final thing worth mentioning - before a refurb a couple of years back Darwin had a different soundtrack that was actually far creepier. Happily, someone's uploaded it for posterity! Enjoy!