The Finback and the Shark: A Process Blog

I recently took a trip up to Seymour, Texas, in order to report on an intermittent, ongoing fossil dig happening up on the famous Early Permian deposits on the Craddock Ranch. My main source (and, admittedly, the reason I pitched the story in the first place) was Robert Bakker, and over the course of the two day trip, I ended up spending quite a bit of time shooting the breeze with him about fossils, religion, and various other topics. I'll be placing an edited, condensed version of our interview here in the coming days, but right now I wanted to share something else--some pieces of art inspired by those conversations.

The overwhelming majority of fossils from the Craddock belong to Dimetrodon, which was remarkably common in the seasonal floodplains and channels of the period. I'd never drawn Dimetrodon before, and decided to look for a movement analogue in order to get a feel for the animal. I ended up settling on big monitor lizards and Argentinian Tegus as a stand in, and watched a bunch of videos on Youtube of big lizards cavorting around. Dimetrodon is, of course, a stem-mammal and not a squamate, but the body plans seem at least marginally similar.

I soon started doodling. The resulting sketches are my attempts to get to grips with Dimetrodon anatomy and some wild ideas about what they got up to on a day to day basis, including a very speculative hatchling (clockwise, 4th from top.) Other highlights include display pushups (5th from top) and a Dimetrodon taking a dip on a hot day (2nd from top.)

Copyright 2015 Asher Elbein

Out of all of these sketches, I liked the rearing Dimetrodon the most. Big lizards can be surprisingly fleet footed, especially when it comes to wheeling around, shaking prey, or threatening predators. For an example, see this Youtube video of a Tegu fighting off a much, much larger dog. 

There remained the question of what would prompt the animal to wheel in such a aesthetically pleasing fashion. The answer lay, again, with Bakker--his studies of the Seymour deposits have led him to propose that Dimetrodon was a generalist that happily attacked amphibians and the sinuous, poison-spined Xenacanthus river sharks. As evidence for this, he points to the amount of chewed up shark remains in the deposit, as well as the fact that the massive populations of Dimetrodon in the area had to be eating something, and there simply weren't enough big herbivores in most of the rocks to go around. Also, the majority of the shed Dimetrodon teeth they find lie in aquatic, marshy or pond deposits, suggesting that Dimetrodon spent a good bit of time feeding there.

For the painting, I envisioned a big bull Dimetrodon attracted to a drying pond by the splashing of trapped sharks and amphibians. As a tip of the hat to my lizardy inspiration, I gave it the broad, flapping jowels of an Argentine Tegu, a sexually dimorphic trait, and a snout scarred by repeated tussles with other Xenacanthus sharks. This particular fellow has made a habit of killing sharks, and has gotten fairly good at it, but still gets tagged occasionally. In this frozen moment, he's shaking the shark hard enough that he's actually all but left the ground.

Copyright 2015 Asher Elbein

With the final pose settled on, more details were added with soft pencils.

Copyright 2015 Asher Elbein

Finally, I scanned the finished sketch into Adobe Photoshop and began cleaning it up and painting it. I eventually decided that I might as well go all the way and settled on a showy, Tegu-like color scheme. Dimetrodon was pretty clearly a somewhat flamboyant animal, and as a big predator of aquatic game may not have needed much in the way of camouflage. The final image, after much fussing, fuming, and some momentary, computer-freeze related terror, is below. I'm rather proud of it.

Copyright 2015 Asher Elbein 

Dimetrodon, as it turns out, is quite fun to draw, and is a much more fascinating beast than is popularly credited. I can't wait to share the finished article in a few months.

King Craptor's "Jur-Ass-Kick World" Review

In the interest of providing another opinion on Jurassic World, which is something the world sorely needs, we at LITC are giving a guest post to one "King Craptor."

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I liked that movie so much I gave it the title "Jur-Ass-Kick World"! The dinosaurs were mostly strong and it was very exciting to see the people die. I liked it that dinosaurs died to, like the brontosauruses that died, those were better dead than alive, and it was exciting to see how dead they were.

I liked the mean pterodactyls that attacked the people. Those pterodactyls were pretty scary. I liked the mean mossasaurus that ate the pterodactyl. I liked that the babysitter died. I don't like to admit when I'm wrong, but I sure was wrong about pterodactyls. I thought they sucked but they didn't suck. They were badass. VERY COOL.

Indomnus was the show stopper of course! I was excited every time that naughty freak showed up on the screen to wreck havoc. I was sad when mossasaurus killed it, but I know that the mean guys will make another Indomnus. Maybe a bunch of them! I liked the raptors best when they were chums with Indomnus, I don't know what kind of crazy juice they were drinking to be buddies with Starlord anyway, I had a hard time suspending my disbeliefs about that. THANKS HOLLYWOOD.

If I have to pick which people were my favorite people were the mean people with guns. I don't know why more people aren't mean, it's fun to watch. But I still get to see all those people get ripped up by dinosaurs and it is entertaining.

Jimmy Fallon tickles my funny bones, so that gyroscope scene was just extra gravy on the whole cake for old King Craptor. I still want him to be ripped to meat pieces by a gross killer dinosaur though.

So over all, I approve, go see the move already! It's the opposite of garbage! Double A+!!

Asher's Jurassic World Review: More Teeth

This is the second of LITC's Jurassic World reviews. A prior take on this film can be read here. 

Let's get this out of the way as quickly as possible: no, Jurassic World isn't very good. When judged by the metrics of ambition and imagination, it fails and keeps failing up until the final reel. And yet the depth of its failure is such that it somehow manages to come out the other side into an odd kind of success, as onscreen events take on a crazy momentum that leads to the kind of finale you almost certainly won't see coming.

 20 or so years after John Hammond's Jurassic Park flamed out prior to opening, a new corporate conglomerate led by the diffident billionaire Simon Masrani (Irffan Khan) has successfully opened a new resort on Isla Nublar. This time, things seem to have gone as planned: the dinosaurs are contained, the hotels and shops are bustling, and business is ticking along at a comfortable level. However, Masrani constantly looking for ways to drum up business, and with the help of lab technicians like the original Jurassic Park's Dr. Wu (B.D Wong, chilly), he's got a new attraction ready to unveil: a genetic hybrid called by the market-tested name of Indominus rex.

However, Masrani isn't a total idiot. He's well aware that the new dinosaur has grown larger and more vicious than accounted for, and he wants to make damn sure that the enclosure can contain it. To that end he orders Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard, working with what she's given), the park's impeccably dressed and slightly frosty operations manager, to oversee the final transition. By the way, he tells her, one of Jurassic World's behavioral researchers, Owen Grady (an affable Chris Pratt), has been working with the park's Velociraptor pack. If he can keep those famously savvy animals from escaping and wreaking havoc, he's probably a good person to bring in to glance over the enclosure as well. Claire isn't enthusiastic about this: it turns out she and Owen have a bit of a...well, "romantic history" would be stretching it. But she swallows her pride and brings him in.

Unfortunately, Claire's nephews (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins, both forgettable) have picked that day to arrive in the park. With the addition of two meddling kids, a pushy military contractor with delusions of grandeur (Vincent D'Onofrio, phoning it in) and the unexpected intelligence of the Indominus herself, what starts out as a normal day at Jurassic World quickly takes a turn for the worse.

Jurassic World is best understood as the distillation of the 2015 summer blockbuster: an uneven, deeply stupid film seasoned with a light dusting of irony and a few genuinely clever ideas.To begin with, its plot is cobbled together from pieces of other, better movies, most notably Aliens, from which it draws its interminable "dinosaurs as military weapons" subplot. The entire last hour of the film bears a striking similarity to the third act from, of all things, How To Train Your Dragon 2. (This is likely unintentional, but it's still weird.) About the only film World doesn't steal much from is Jurassic Park, though it compensates for this by a slightly desperate effort to cram in as many nods and winks to the original film as possible--Mr. DNA, statues of Hammond, a mid-film visit to the original park's visitor center, and (in a genuinely inspired bit) a holographic Dilophosaurus. 

Actually, the entire film spends a lot of time drawing attention to itself--in the parlance of TV Tropes, Jurassic World hangs so many lampshades it's a wonder any light gets through at all. Hardly a scene goes by where a character isn't referencing the implausibility of events or undercutting the premise. Some of the film's better laughs come from this self deprecation--Chris Pratt's wonderfully befuddled "Do you hear yourself right now?" in response to the contractor's dreams of militarized raptors is a  highlight--but the constant chuckles end up being used as something of a get-out-of-jail-free card. To put it bluntly, World is the kind of film that makes a joke about a female character wearing impractical shoes in the jungle and then has her keep them on throughout the film. It's a particularly annoying attempt to have its stupid-cake and eat it too: the film is aware enough of its flaws to laugh at them but doesn't seem particularly interested in fixing them.

But what about those clever ideas? Well, bless its reptilian heart, but World has a few corkers. Central to the film's theme is the idea of its murderous dinosaur as a metaphor for modern blockbusters themselves. "Nobody's impressed by dinosaurs anymore," Claire says to a group of potential investors, in what is practically the film's thesis statement. It's a concept the film hammers home--the only way to keep people's interest is through bigger attractions, bigger rides, bigger, bigger, bigger, all crowned with a dash of corporate synergy. Verizon Wireless presents Indominus rex. "You didn't want real," Wu tells Masrani when confronted about the fact that the Indominus has shown unnaturally murderous proclivities. "You just wanted more teeth." For a film busily delivering just that, this might read as hypocrisy, and to some extent it is. But looking at the other blockbuster reboots and special effects extravaganzas that have so thoroughly taken over cinemas, it's a point well taken.

But the film's best idea is something I've never actually seen in a dinosaur film before: the wonderfully developed interplay between Owen and his pack of raptors. As much as Owen likes to talk about the bond between him and the aggressive dinosaurs being one of mutual respect, the film deepens and shades in that relationship, making it clear that it's a good deal more contentious and knife-edged than the dreamy Chris Pratt would perhaps like to admit. The raptors are for the most part characterized as dangerous animals with impulses and motives of their own, and as the film goes on, where their loyalties lie becomes very much an open question. World spends at least a little time trying to get into the head of the Indominus as well; Owen's discovery that the new, intelligent super-dinosaur is likely a little crazed from being raised in isolation is one of a few effective moments of foreboding in the film, and contextualizes ludicrous lines like "she's killing for sport!" that popped up in the trailers.

There is also something legitimately winning about the film's occasional willingness to throw irony to the winds and really go for it, the discussion of which includes Spoilers. The revelation that the Indominus is "part raptor!" is a hoot, and marks the film shrugging and doubling down on lunacy, a choice that culminates in a hilariously fun battle between the Indominus, the remaining raptors, a late arriving T.rex, and an even more late arriving Mosasaurus. This simply should not work, and yet it does, because the film finally stops poking fun at its own stupidity and fully commits to being a stupidly awesome cartoon. I spent the last third of the film laughing like a madman, and it was the most fun I've had in a recent film. Spoilers end here. 

 Finally, Jurassic World's conception of the functioning park itself is generally well sketched, if occasionally at odds with the film's own musings. Despite what we see, most of the park's nameless patrons are still plenty impressed with dinosaurs, in what seems like a subtle indictment of Claire's corporate mindset. The visitor area is thronged with shops, tennis courts, and branded merchandise. The ride operators are bored and likely stoned. The obnoxious cameo by Jimmy Fallon--a tutorial video that plays in the Gyrospheres--is a fairly merciless skewering of gimmicky celebrity cameos at theme parks (and reminded me of Ellen Degeneres' Epcot ride, which also includes dinosaurs.) The park at Jurassic World feels pretty convincing as a place.

What aren't convincing, I regret to report, are the dinosaurs. I'll save my musings on issues of accuracy for another time; yes, the raptors should have feathers and hands that are correctly oriented, and the fact that several of the herbivores are shown with dragging tails is basically inexcusable. But Jurassic Park had more than its fair share of inaccuracies as well. What really damns Jurassic World is the fact that the dinosaurs themselves are unconvincing as animals sharing a physical space with the actors and sets. The models are rendered with a kind of slick, almost slimy sheen that makes them feel rubbery and texture-less. The animals rarely display any feeling of real physical weight or heft, despite attempts to use motion capture to lend more realism to their activities. Strangest of all is the fact that the proportions on all the animals veer into the cartoonish--big eyes, slightly over-sized feet, stylized in ways that call attention to how designed  they are. The result is a special effects extravaganza that ends up feeling weirdly cheap, without even the convincing monsters of something like Peter Jackson's King Kong. Whatever the flaws of the prior two Jurassic Park films, the combination of practical effects and CGI they employed have this film beat, hands down. For a film that clearly wants to wow audiences with extravagant spectacle, Jurassic World never really delivers.

But if you simply want CGI monsters eating the hell out of a procession of nameless goons, capped with a finale that feels like a bunch of toys getting banged together and unencumbered by actual characters or convincing special effects, it's an inoffensive way to kill a Saturday afternoon.

Bloody hell, it's T. rex Autopsy

If you happened to dislike a certain highly profitable movie that was released recently (and I know a few people who would have good reason to), you may be consoled that there is an antidote at hand. Someone's only gone and made a TV show that involves the intricate dissection of an anatomically correct Tyrannosaurus carcass - a programme that combines the most up-to-date science with stunning practical effects work. It also features Steve Brusatte digging his way through gory theropod innards, which I will accept as fair penitence for that horrible coffee table book. It's National Geographic's T. rex Autopsy!

The life-size T. rex model. Photo from Nat Geo's official site, copyright Nat Geo Channels/Christopher Albert, and used on the assumption that they'll probably be cool with it...

Most dinosaur documentaries concern themselves with sensationalist, noisy battles between computer-generated beasties with a bloodlust only matched by one of George W Bush and Tony Blair's quiet meetings at Camp David. Very occasionally, something good does break through, as it did with the well-researched, John Hurt-narrated Planet Dinosaur from four years ago (Christ, where did the time go?). The best dino-docus are able to thrill the viewers with science; you've seen an incredible event happen, now see how scientists know it happened. T. rex Autopsy did just that.

The premise of the show was that a T. rex carcass had been found...somewhere (Costa Rica was not mentioned), and the government (seemingly the British government) and spirited it away to a hangar on a military base somewhere, never to be seen again by anyone except a select band of ne'er-do-wells. These included 'all-action vet' Luke Gamble; palaeontologists Steve Brusatte and the amazingly named Matthew T. Mossbrucker; and palaeo-biologist Tori Herridge. Together, they would literally delve into the belly of the beast (and the leg, and the face) to figure out how it lived and why it died.

This show is catnip for dinosaur enthusiasts, and especially those who are still thrilled at the sight of a T. rex skeleton in a museum, who will well know that a dinosaur doesn't have to be alive to take your breath away. Each section of the creature was created in astonishing detail; one of the consultants for the show, Dave Hone (for it is he), has interviewed visual effects maestro Jez Gibson-Harris on the creature's creation, and it's well worth a read. The realisation of this model can be regarded as an enormous (in every sense) achievement for everyone involved - 13 metres long, and filled with blood, guts, muscle, bone, partly-digested food, eggs and even eyeballs.

The team. L to R: Matthew Mossbrucker, Steve Brusatte, Luke Gamble, and Toni Herridge. Photo by Nat Geo Channels/Stuart Freedman.

 As a dinosaur geek, part of the thrill of this show is guessing exactly what the crew will happen upon next. I felt genuine glee when they encountered the animal's gastralia, never mind its avian-style respiratory system, complete with numerous air sacs. There is no compromise made for what Andrea Cau would call the 'dinomaniaco' crowd - this is a beast that has legs like an overgrown chicken, a carefully explained avian through-lung, and, yes, simple feathers over much of its body. While there is a little informed speculation, the majority of what is found in the beast's body is related to solid fossil evidence.

There was also a delight in having a lot of very neat, but often overlooked, dinosaurian features explained to a lay audience. At one point, Mossbrucker pointed Gamble to the animal's caudofemoralis muscle, a secret behind the dinosaurs' locomotory success. There was talk of Tyrannosaurus' keen sense of smell, but also of its superb eyesight. Indeed, the dissection of the eyeball was a wonderfully unexpected highlight of the show. Much was made of the fact that the animal was a sophisticated predator that was highly adapted to the ecosystem in which it lived. It wasn't a monster, or some sort of laughable reptilian throwback - it was real, and made to seem all the more tangibly real thanks to this programme.

Any downsides? Well, some of the CG life reconstructions felt like they were tacked on from a less worthy show, featuring as they did an awkward-looking tyrannosaur with eyes like the Cookie Monster (or '60s Godzilla) that took on a flock of incredibly foolish dromaeosaurs (nice plumage, though). But these hardly detracted from the main event.

If you haven't seen this yet, then please seek it out as soon as you can. It definitely doesn't keep popping up on YouTube in flagrant violation of copyright, ahem ahem. Upon watching it, you'll grin as widely as Steve Brusatte when he explores the tyrannosaur's intestines, or Tori Berridge when she rams her hand up the animal's cloaca, only to find that the theropd was fertile. First class, immensely enjoyable stuff, and a credit to everyone involved.

Marc's Jurassic World review: not your father's de-extinction theme park

Aptly enough, Jurassic World feels like a theme park ride, and certainly not one of the sedate, trundle-along-in-a-gyrosphere variety. It's a high-tech, towering, gleaming steel roller coaster, with a breakneck pace that very rarely relents (only when they need to force a little character development in). It's certainly enormous fun, a spectacle worthy of being seen on the biggest screen possible. What it isn't is a Jurassic Park movie.

I've tried to keep it brief, but as a warning, this might get unusually wordy.

Granted, the name change was probably for a good reason. Jurassic World breaks from the franchise thus far in numerous ways. The slow build-up of the first film and The Lost World is dispensed with. There's no need for characters to be coerced or manipulated in order to turn up on Dino Doom Island; the place is now a fully fledged tourist attraction. The film begins with two (largely forgettable) kiddiwinks, played by Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins as the older one and the younger one, respectively, already on their way to an island just off the coast of Costa Rica.

Handily, they're off to visit their Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), who seems to virtually run the place single-handedly. She also happens to be an especially uptight corporate bigshot who has walked in from a Paul Verhoeven movie, and is unwilling to see just how much of a better person she could be if only she would embrace motherhood and child-rearing and blahblahblah. Yes, the gender politics are indeed a little dubious in this one, but fortunately this stuff is mostly dispensed with near the start.

Naturally, Claire can't be arsed looking after her sister's lazily sketched children, so she sends her ever-so-English assistant to pick them up instead (yeah, thanks Hollywood). While Younger One (OK, Gray) is a wide-eyed dinosaur enthusiast, Older One (Zach) is a Surly Teenager who'd rather stare creepily at girls and check his mobile than deign to get a close-up look at a Tyrannosaurus devouring a live goat. And so the self-satirising begins.

You see, resurrected dinosaurs just aren't that big enough of a draw any more; like Zach, people have grown jaded, and falling profits are alarming the park's corporate sponsors. In conversation with expert dino-wrangler Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), Claire reveals in suitably business-bot tones how the park's management have decided to fix this problem - and, yes, it's with an oversized, extra-toothy monstro-dinosaur spliced with a smorgasbord of genes from different creatures.

I'm sure you've all seen the usual stills dozens of times, so here's something a bit different. Constantijn van Cauwenberge contacted us on Facebook, asking if we'd be interested in sharing his images of the JW raptors, but with feathers painted on. Sure would!

Much has been made in the online palaeo community* of the hybrid dinosaur, the 'Indominus rex' (or 'Verizon Wireless presents Indominus rex', as Claire would have it). Mostly, it's been criticised for being an unimaginative 'big mean theropod' with a mouth wide enough to drive a bus into, a rather sunken head and opposable thumbs, for some reason. However, as a misbegotten creation literally designed by committee, its design sort of makes sense. Of course it's unimaginative - it was cooked up by the marketing department.

Naturally, Owen is the first to point out that deliberately creating an animal with exaggerated predatory characteristics, and then keeping it in isolation for its entire life, is the worst idea in the long, sad history of bad ideas. It's not long before Indubitablus has outsmarted its captors and, with the help of its gene-spliced superpowers, busted out of its confinement. And that's when the fun starts.

For me, the most effective scenes in the movie are those that take place in the earlier stages of the Indiabolus' rampage. Quickly sprinting off into the jungle and tearing out its tracking implant, the creature has numerous thrilling encounters with the two kids (whom you don't really care about), Owen (whom you do - Chris Pratt on top eminently likeable form yet again), Claire and a host of ill-equipped InGen security goons, who are apparently deliciously crispity crunchety on the inside. Mmm.

There are some surprisingly potent moments of tension as the Indianapolus, which apparently kills for the sheer thrill of it, stalks its human victims - superior to anything seen in the other two sequels, and almost up there with the Main Road sequence from the original. There's even room for a good dinosaur-on-dinosaur setpiece, as the hybrid freak takes on an ankylosaur. Furthermore, a scene that could quite easily have been inadvertently amusing - Owen and Claire coming upon a trail of slaughtered apatosaurs in what was formerly Happy Herbivore Valley - manages to be genuinely rather sad. Poor old bronto.

This being LITC and all, I should probably go into more detail about the animal reconstructions. Basically, from a scientific perspective, they are pretty much all atrocious. Even the aforementioned Apatosaurus lack the real animal's absurdly fat neck, and have skin that is best described as pachyderm-meets-Gurche. Stegosaurus have correctly upright tails in one scene (a la The Lost World), only to have droopy Burian tails in the next. The raptors long ago ceased resembling real animals, and are now firmly entrenched sci-fi monster characters - they've even shed their JP3 quills. By far the worst are the pterosaurs, which are skeletal, screaming nightmare banshees seemingly based on William Stout's earlier work, with added monsterising.

Another of Constantijn's tweaked screenshots. The feathers aren't strictly accurate, of course, but then they're GENETICALLY ENGINEERED WITH FROG DNA and there is science FICTION, gawd. When in doubt, stick key words in uppercase. Anyway, check out Constantijn's site, Conz Comics!

 Now, much is made in the movie about how the dinosaurs aren't real dinosaurs, or in the words of lead geneticist Dr Wu (a role reprised by B D Wong, who has not aged a day), not 'pure'. Reflecting what many apologists...uh, fans have been saying on t'internet, Wu points out to hilariously absent-minded CEO and inept helicopter pilot Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) that his creations are built on a hodgepodge of DNA from different animals, and don't represent reality. "You didn't want reality - you wanted more teeth." Fair enough, but also rather lame. The techniques have been refined since the first film - we should be closer to the Real Deal. And it would just be so, excuse me, awesome to see more up-to-date dinosaurs on the big screen - it would replicate the thrill felt when seeing Jurassic Park for the first time.

But this isn't a Jurassic Park movie. The dinosaurs are avowed freaks and monsters - the movie declares itself a monster flick, and then sits back and watches the carnage unfold. Sure, the carnage is a hoot - especially when the freak-o-pterosaurs descend on a crowd of tourists in Hitchcockian fashion, or InGen troopers take on mere reptiles with rocket launchers - but the wonder is gone. The film wants to have its cake and eat it, with characters popping up that are essentially stand-ins for sceptical audience members** - "the original park was legit, they were content with real dinosaurs" - but in the process becomes a little too knowing and clever-clever.

I want to see dinosaurs in my dinosaur movie, damn it. Godzilla was last year.

So, yes, you will be entertained. It's well-paced, thrilling, and manages the odd humorous beat, too. You'll grin at just how far Colin Trevorrow is willing to push at the limits of what is acceptably absurd, and clearly everyone involved thoroughly enjoyed making this movie. But, sadly, the Jurassic series has ceased to be a dinosaur franchise. I'd be tempted to say that it's eaten itself, but that's not quite true. It has lost much of the ethos that made the original so memorable, and that's a little sad. Go and see it, but don't expect the world.

Finally, I'd like to discuss the film's ending, which is when it goes completely batshit crazy. Of course, serious spoilers will be involved, so anyone who hasn't seen the film should probably stop reading now.

*See Brian Engh's Twitter hasthtag #buildabetterfaketheropod, and all the art that spawned, much of it excellent, the rest (intentionally) hilarious.
**Thanks to Niroot for astutely noting that one.

...

Right - the ending. Good grief. It was to be expected that Indubbelus would not be stopped by mere ordinary dinosaurs, least of all a gaggle of puny raptors. However, the treatment of the T. rex as the true hero of the franchise has now reached new levels of hilarious absurdity. As the giant door of Paddock Nine rose inexorably upwards, and the grand old dame slowly lumbered forth, eyes glinting in the darkness, the scene was only missing a Spaghetti Western flourish on the soundtrack. And then...and then, it teams up with the lone surviving raptor. And then...that still isn't enough to finish off the Inkillablus, which by this point has endured attacks from high-powered tasers, bullets, an ankylosaur club and a near-direct hit from a bloody rocket launcher.

So we require a squamate-ex-machina, as Charles Knight's steroidal mosasaur (which must weigh about 200 tonnes) beaches itself in order to drag Incredidiblus to a watery grave.

And then...the T. rex and raptor, those former foes, give each other a mutual look of respect, before wandering off.

I'm just surprised they didn't go further. Where was Spinosaurus? T. rex could have tag-teamed with her, putting aside old animosities in order to take down the GM impostor. And then, as it collapsed to the ground, it could have been swarmed over by a horde of Compsognathus land piranha. All set to one of the WAR! themes from Serious Sam. Maybe something for the sequels, along with making sure that King Ghidorah turns up - haven't seen him in a while. Crossover, anyone?

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Prehistoric Animals (Hamlyn)

There can't be very many small, 'spotter's guide'-type dinosaur books that tuck a lovely surprise into their final few pages, after endless illustrations of animals standing around gawping in front of white backdrops - but, why look, here comes one now. Prehistoric Animals (first ed 1969, this ed 1974) is about as generic as they come, but offers up a pleasantly painterly few spreads towards the rear. It's just a shame that the artists aren't properly credited...

Although Barry Cox is credited as author, the book only lists 'Design Practitioners Ltd.' as the illustrator. Boo. In spite of the implication that the book was illustrated by a handful of people, there is no sense of discontinuity or disjointedness. The reconstructions of the animals have aged to varying degrees, with the dinosaurs probably coming off the worst. The cavalcade of retro tropes begins on the cover, where a slightly sad-looking, warty Triceratops (note the body-coloured horns; an upgrade only available on higher-spec ceratopsians) jostles for space with a grumpy Deinotherium and Rexy in classic Osborne guise (standing upright, that is - not espousing racism or anything like that). As usual, while the book might cover all prehistoric animals, dinosaurs are acknowledged as the real stars of the show. How fortuitous that they have the habit of turning up right in the middle of the narrative.

Most of the book consists of illustrations like these. Ah, but then we have the surprise near the back...

Lovely, romantic prehistoric panoramas! Over on the Fezbooks, Blake � Murch� remarked that the palette in the below scene (depicting Cretaceous marine reptiles) is "fucking gorgeous". And I quite agree. There is a wonderful, primordial murk to both that and the above scene, depicting Jurassic land animals (there is intended to be a division down the middle). That such tiny scenes - about 22cm across - should be so evocative is quite remarkable. Just take a look at the steaming swamps in the stegosaur scene, or the rush of bubbles around the diving bird below. Marvellous. The reconstructions are horribly outdated overall, and in some cases just Plain Wrong even for the era (with Colin the macrocephalic aquatic sauropod being a particular highlight), but the artwork's still quite lovely.

The Late Cretaceous scene is like something out of a picture book, with beautifully stylised, detailed foliage and a palette that delicately treads the line between colourful and naturalistic. Although disappointed not to find Rousseau's tiger lurking in the undergrowth, Rexy still finds time to wave courteously to a weird Protoceratops-alike. For some reason, his face reminds me of Barney from The Simpsons. "Yoo-hoooo!"

Perhaps my favourite of all these scenes takes place not in the Mesozoic, but millions of years later. In this beautifully realised illustration, a lone Uintatherium bathes in a shady swamp. It's far better than any panorama in a book like this has any right to be; almost worthy of Burian himself. With the eye drawn to the great grey beast just off-centre, it's easy to miss the terrifying nightmare lemur lurking to the far left. Avert its unrelenting, unfeeling stare, for there lies madness; shunning daylight and human contact, locking one's self into a dank cellar and producing Memo Kosemen-worthy artwork, for ever.

For all that it has an artsy side, the bulk of this books' illustrations do, indeed, consist of plain old prehistoric animal portraits. In fact, there are dozens of the things, spreading an impressively diverse number of different animal clades - I may have to devote another post entirely to them. For now, here are a few from the only section that (come on now) really matters - Mesozoic dinosaurs.

Having already popped up on the cover, Rexy puts in another appearance inside. Although depicted in a rather upright pose, it's worth noting that the back and tail are actually quite straight - not bad for a book dating back to 1969. The head, however, is a complete mess - like a crude rubbery glove puppet.

When the book's large ornithopods appear, there is a notable contrast between the Neave Parker-aping Iguanodon, with its resolute tripodal pose and customary dewlap, and a quadrupedal 'hadrosaur' (which appears to be based on Corythosaurus). This is perhaps the perfect illustration of how artists can become hidebound to a very particular depiction of an animal - as if there was simply no way that Iguanodon could ever appear except as a bloated tripod with a flattering neck accessory. Meanwhile, the Corythosaurus shows a little more invention. It appears to be lolling its tongue which, oddly enough, was a trope often applied to Iguanodon illustrations.

While most 'portraits' are full-body depictions, Pachycephalosaurus is unique in having its head alone illustrated, with the text indicating that this is probably because it isn't known from much else. Although the reference material available to agency artists would undoubtedly have been poor back then, it's clear that the illustrator at least had access to an image of a skull in lateral view - the dome, snout spikes and overall shape are there, but some finer details are off. Still, in light of modern restorations, it's interesting to see the animal restored without any 'cheeks'. Hey, Jaime Headden, have you drawn this one yet?

The book's depiction of pterosaurs is also a little different in that they are given a prop, namely a naked tree trunk. While the art isn't much to write home about, it's nice to see Dsungaripterus make an appearance; even more pleasing is that it's shown climbing a tree trunk, rather than hanging upside-down in defiance of pterosaur pedal anatomy, gravity and the collective rage of every pterosaur researcher in the world.

And finally...over on Facebook, ever-enthusiastic commenter Bill Lovell enquired as to whether this was the book with the 'weird kangaroo with the creepy human face'. It is indeed, Bill. While the majority of Sthenurus reconstructions can't help but make the animal look very strange, that's only because it really did look rather odd. This book is surely unique, however, in making it look quite so disconcertingly humanoid. I think it's those winning cheekbones.

Coming up next week: motorcycling dudebro maniraptor wranglers, probably.

The Jurassic World Challenge

[Edited 6:41pm EST 6/2/15 for clarity and to incorporate some feedback; 12:27pm EST 6/6/15 to include links to our paleoart gift guide; 2:40pm EST 6/15 to add information about the Jurassic Foundation.]

It's June 2, and we're officially 10 days away from the release of Jurassic World in the US. The online paleontology community has long been afire with speculation, opining, ranting, and even a bit of giddy anticipation. This post is not about our respective attitudes about the film or the franchise, but about turning all of that energy around into something that can benefit our shared love of natural history. Whether we're happy with the way Jurassic World depicts its animals, tolerate it, or bemoan it, we all want the current scientific view of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals to gain more traction among laypeople.

So here is an idea. It's pretty simple. I call it the Jurassic World Challenge. If you're buying a ticket for the movie, it's a fair bet that you also have that much money to give to the people who bring prehistory to life in the real world. Think of it as a matching fund, crowdsourced. See the movie, do some good. The official rules:

• Donate the equivalent of your Jurassic World ticket price to paleontological research
  or
• Spend the equivalent of your ticket price on the wares of an independent paleoartist

Of course, you don't have to pick one or the other. Buy some art, give some money to a research effort, enjoy the movie. I also put together a graphic to help spread the word, in before and after flavors. You are free to disseminate these far and wide! Take it and post it on your blog or other social media channels.





Below, I've put together a list of research and education funding efforts in need of our help, since these tend not to get much coverage. You may have local or regional museums and other institutions that you can support - just be sure, as Andy Farke notes in the comments below, to specify that you want to donate to research. It may even be worth it to team up with a group of friends and family to pool your money together. As for artists, most readers can probably think of a dozen off the top of their heads. You may check out the huge three-part gift guide I did last year, which focused on paleoart: parts one, two, and three. Also, browse our paleoart and Mesozoic Miscellany tags to find some of the many we've shared here over the years - almost all of them have work available for purchase!

Jurassic Foundation

Since I first posted this, I have been in touch with Matt Lamanna, current president of the Jurassic Foundation, about how people can donate to them. The Jurassic Foundation was founded in 1998 and its sole purpose is to fund dinosaur research. This is a great beneficiary. I was surprised to hear how little they've ever even had people inquire about donations! They don't have a way to do it online, but checks made out to the Jurassic Foundation can be sent to the following address:

Matthew Lamanna (current president)
Section of Vertebrate Paleontology
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-4080
U.S.A.

From Indiegogo:

Research Dinosaur Tracks in Northeast BC, Canada! (As featured recently in an interview with Lisa Buckley!)

The Ice-Blue Bones of Telluride: A Discovery Story

From GoFundMe:

Help MHP Paleo get a field vehicle

Mobile Fossil Teaching Sets

Support My Fossil Internship in Panama!

Looking into the Waters of the Past

Paleontology vs. The Dakar Rally 2016

Here are a couple hosted by Experiment, a science research crowdfunding platform.

Paleo-School - Students Experiencing their Childhood Dream

Using the Past to Understand Climate Change

A selection of campaigns from Donors Choose, a crowdfunding platform specifically for classrooms. These all came up by searching for "fossil", "geology", and "dinosaur."

Super Heroes Learning Through Our Senses

Help Kids Appreciate the Beauty and Wonder of Science!

Rocks Rock!

Rock Cycle and Fossil Activity Kits- Middle School Geology

Class Supplies for Success

The Jurassic World Challenge is not meant to be a test, or to shame anyone who does not take part. It is not meant to indict the producers of the movie for not funding science. It's just a way to encourage people to give back to the paleontological community that makes a movie like Jurassic World possible. So, if you're moved to comment on this post, rather than argue over Jurassic World's dinosaurs, add to the list above and suggest a good museum, education project, research funding campaign, or other paleontological cause to give money to. Or, of course, your favorite artist who runs an on-line shop! Let's put our Jurassic World money to good use!