Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs! The 1987 Childcraft Annual - Last Hurrah

There's probably a good point at which to stop posting about the same 1980s children's dinosaur book, but it isn't before you've covered any hadrosaurs. Therefore, please be welcoming of one last round of the Childcraft Annual, and of John Rignall's delightfully coloured bright-eyed lambeosaurines. It's a lovely day to be sporting a solid orange head crest, having tangerine dreams and admiring the smoking scenery.

I'm not sure quite what it is about this pair - other than the wonderful skin patterns, of course - but I really like them. I think it's down to the eyes - staring, expressionless discs suitably reminiscent of birds and certain lizards. Aside from that, the shading is quite excellent, while the lack of an obvious keratinous sheath over the beaks lends them something of a retro air.

Happily, Rignall also provided an illustration of (the head of) Tsintaosaurus, in all its suggestive red rocket glory. It's almost a shame that we won't be seeing any more of these (or the boring flat-nosed incarnation), but at least we have a rich artistic record. Since Rignall avoided aping Sibbick, we're spared the, uh, resonating chambers, but the fork at the end of the crest is an interesting touch. To top it off, there's a wee juvenile in classic cheapo dino toy tripod pose. If it weren't for the nubbin-like incipient crest on the baby, this could almost be an illustration of Tsintaosaurus posing with an action figure of itself.

Now, it's often been suggested that the moon landings were faked, mostly by people who think that the Americans were left smarting so badly by Sputnik that they were willing to plough billions of dollars into a dusty film set and a team of snipers to keep a watchful eye on Neil Armstrong day and night. I don't believe they were, although I could well understand NASA being put off by the thousand-strong army of nesting Maiasaura that they almost certainly expected to be waiting to greet their astronauts. A decent effort by Patricia Wynne, but a little foliage wouldn't have gone amiss. Also, the head crests have been doubled up, but everyone does that.

While scenes of good mother lizards hanging around a dustbowl are quite typical in books like this, it's less common to see a Tenontosaurus just standing around looking chill. But here we are. This is a quite gorgeous piece by Jean Helmer, not least for the wonderfully textured and patterned skin of the animal, which manages to completely alleviate any pitfalls in having to go monochrome. While obviously depicted eating, the creature still seems poised and alert, ready to run at the first sign of a man with a big beard and a cowboy hat ordering an army of dewlapped deinonychosaurs to attack, my pretties, attack.

Fellow ornithopod Iguanodon is having none of that peaceful, frond-chewin' nonsense. Edward Brooks' illustration of Mr Stabby is clearly Sibbick-inspired, although he manages to make the attacking theropod look like even more of a clueless dolt. I simply love the description in the text of the potential for a gang of Iguanodon to get all stab-happy on a theropod - to the point of thumb-spiking it to death. Geeze, guys, you're already rather more massive than they are - can't you just trample 'em?

Brooks also provides a rather Kishian illustration of Saurolophus, but said hadrosaur isn't the intended star of this piece. No, that would be the disembodied arm creeping in stage left. Therizinosaurs are so ubiquitous these days (no toy line is complete without one, no matter how hideously deformed), it's hard to remember a time when they were so utterly mysterious - when they would conceal themselves in copses of trees and slowly reach out...and touch you. Brrr. Nice work from Brooks.

We'll round off our look at the Childcraft annual with some delightful papercraft, courtesy (in this case) of George Suyeoka (with photography by Ralph Brunke). A Suyeoka piece precedes each section of the book, providing a wonderfully stylised and eye-catching introduction to a given geological era. One simply doesn't see the likes of this very often - I really like it. You can't beat a bright blue Diplodocus.

The Cretaceous piece is notable not only for possibly the only solid yellow Corythosaurus ever to grace a printed page, but also the amusingly naive-looking tyrannosaur gorily devouring a carcass in the top left. The Triceratops, meanwhile, appears to draw on Sibbick's Normanpedia work.

And finally...a guide to different dinosaur groups, by Bill Miller rather than Suyeoka this time. When compared with Suyeoka, Miller draws more on retro palaeoart, and there is an awkward collision of old and new that's very '80s; a pasty-shaped stegosaur and sprightly, erect-tailed nodosaur share a page. Using a different colour for each clade is a neat idea (even if 'prosauropods' and ornithopods are a little close), and the book's attempts to introduce evolutionary relationships to kids are quite admirable (as previously noted). Bonus points to you if you immediately spotted the ornithosuchid hiding among the theropods - proof that 1987 was a Long Time Ago. Which makes me very old. Vintage, even. Sob.

Next time: something else! I might even review Dinosaur Britain, since people keep mentioning it. Feel free to comment with your thoughts!

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs! The 1987 Childcraft Annual - Part 3

Having already looked at saurischian dinosaurs in my first two posts on the 1987 Childcraft annual, it's high time some ornithischians were allowed to show their controversially cheeked faces. There's some more Greg Paul art in this category, but why don't we start with something that proved popular on Facebook?

Commendably, an early chapter attempts to explain taxonomy and nomenclature to children - an impressively difficult task, given how poorly adults seem to grasp it. Naturally, this includes a few examples of dinosaurs that were named after things they resemble, including good ol' Psittacosaurus above. Unfortunately, Jim Channell's illustration of the animal appears to be in a serious funk, like it just saw a vision of the future in which Donald Trump's boot stamps on a human face, for ever. Nice neck folds, but poor Psittacosaurus could really do with a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. Also, it's got an ear where it really shouldn't be. Easy mistake.

Further down the ceratopsian family tree, the book naturally includes Triceratops, as illustrated by Colin Newman. Excellent idea to have them mostly just standing around eating plants and enjoying the (sloping!) scenery, even if there are a few perspective fudges (so where are the horns on the foreground individual coming from?). The animal dramatically facing the viewer is more than a little reminiscent of Sibbick's Normanpedia Styracosaurus, an image so striking that illustrators throughout the late '80s and into the '90s found it impossible to forget.

If you do want ceratopsian-tyrannosaur face-offs, however, Greg Paul's got 'em. And what an image. Just as with his apatosaurs, it's an (even more aptly) confrontational piece that isn't afraid to show off the animal's strange attributes to their fullest extent. It's surprisingly rare that ceratopsians are made to look intimidating - often, they're the noble knights in scaly armour, locked in combat with tyrannosaurian dragons - but the theropod here looks positively puppy-like against that brick wall of a frill. Wonderful stuff.

Paul also contributes an illustration of Pachycephalosaurus in a conspicuously modern guise (i.e. with a proportionately large head), in which the animals turn their domed skulls against an unfortunate young tyrannosaur, rather than each other. Unusual perspectives abound here, too; there's that tyrannosaur sprinting away from the viewer, of course, but there's also a Pachycephalosaurus viewed head-on, unfortunately cropped out here (sorry). Just as with Apatosaurus, the fat behind on his Pachycephalosaurus shows Paul's commitment to making these animals as weird as they really were, as well as his eye for anatomical detail.

While work from other illustrators can't help but pale next to Paul's in terms of anatomical rigour, there's still a lot that's charming about it. This spread, by John Francis, depicts a herd of retro-dino-book favourite and Prehistoric Beast star Monoclonius seeing off a perturbed tyrannosaur, who steals a nervous glance over his shoulder while hot-footing it back into the woods. Monoclonius is one of those dubious genera, like Trachodon, that was once referred to very commonly in popular books (there was even a Dino Riders toy), with illustrations usually based on better-known animals. Perhaps someone should design a t-shirt - "Trachodon&Monoclonius&Deinodon&Didanodon." I'm sure Matt Martyniuk would buy one.

Tyrannosaurs can't always be allowed to escape with their dignity intact, of course (see also: Walking With Dinosaurs, Jurassic Park 3), so here Rexy is subjected to a rigorous clubbing from a cross-looking ankylosaur. Although ostensibly Ankylosaurus, the animal is modelled - typically for the time - on other ankylosaurs, mostly Scolosaurus. Fittingly, this scene combines '80s-style tail-lashing ankylosaurs with old-school squatting ones; the posture of the individual on the right is reminiscent of those good old sprawling scolosaurs, even if the overall look is more up-to-date. I like how Francis has drawn Rexy with both of his overgrown chicken feet flying up into the air. That must have been some wallop.

Ankylosaurs aren't always so bothersome, and here Phil Weare has depicted a pair just hangin' around in a swamp, chewin' on some horsetails and that. It's calling itself Hylaeosaurus, but nobody's fooled; Hylaeosaurus was the brown one on the left.

And finally...I haven't featured any stegosaurs yet, so here's a luvverly bunch of kentrosaurs. It's a decent enough illustration by John Dawson, and the animals are noteworthy for having wide hips, straight limbs, erect tails, and heads raised off the ground (which is more than can be said of many of the Stegosaurus restorations in this book). The way the animals are arranged across the spread, with dead space in between, helps encourage the suggestion that we're walking among them. Yes. Followers of dino-fashion may have noticed that the Kentrosaurus' 'shoulder spines' are located closer to the hips here - this was in style back in the day, before other stegosaurs with shoulder spines made people reconsider. However, one does note that plateosaur enthusiast Heinrich 'Caudofemoralis' Mallison, among others, contends that the spike should stay a-swayin' on the animal's hips, and not without reason. There's rarely a settled deal in dinosaur palaeontology, after all..

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs! The 1987 Childcraft Annual - Part 2

May the 1980s bonanza continue (please do check out part 1 for background, amusing spinosaurs etc.) Having exclusively featured theropods in the first post, let's turn now to their fellow saurischian dinosaurs - you know, the often staggeringly huge ones with the long necks, long tails, and tendency to appear far more loveable than a reptilian behemoth the size of a house probably should. But we haven't just got sauropods - we've got Gregory S Paul� sauropods!

When placed in the context of a book like this, it's extremely easy to see why Paul's work was so influential. Nothing else here comes close to matching the accuracy and fidelity of his illustrations, many of which (that unfortunate Avimimus aside) have aged extraordinarily well. Back in the 1980s, his fat-necked apatosaurs must have been revelatory for many readers of this book, accustomed to lazy, stereotyped, tube-necked old things drawn with scant attention to the fossils. The above piece almost seems to be goading those used to the old Zallingerian depictions. Here is the real Apatosaurus, striding straight towards you, a beast incredible in overall size, width of neck, and minuteness of head. The animals might look a bit underfed by today's standards, but by those of the time, it's an absolutely stunning, confrontational piece.

Paul also provides an illustration of an Apatosaurus rearing up to defend itself from an attacking Allosaurus. Again, it's worth noting the dramatic differences between Paul's sleek, lean predator, and the stocky-limbed Sibbickesque creations that pass for theropods elsewhere in the book. Oh, and the sauropod's quite nice too. Note the concave columnar hands with a single claw, something that a great many artists still can't quite get right. Time to sharpen up, guys - 1980s Greg Paul is beating you. (As an aside, the poor old Field Museum mount looks more than a little anachronistic when juxtaposed with these very Renaissance illustrations.)

Next to the Paulsterpieces, other attempts at apatosaur illustrations end up looking a little inadequate. Roberta Polfus gives good monochrome shading, and the heads of the animals are up-to-date at least, but the short tails, thin necks and large heads are way off the mark.

Elsewhere, Polfus also provides an illustration of a very silly hypothesis. While sauropods likely had more going on than the classic 'nostrils right above the nares' look modelled elsewhere in this book, there's no ruddy way that any known species went a-sproutin' a proboscis of some sort from their often wide-muzzled noggins. Handily, Darren Naish wrote a comprehensive history/takedown of the idea a few years ago on his infamous Tetrapod Zoology blog. Which brings us neatly to...

...This Saltasaurus, illustrated by Edward Brooks. The rearing pose is either copied from Mark Hallett, or else Sibbick-after-Hallett, but there's something interesting going on with the animal's face. Although not quite trunky, Old Salty does seem to be showing off quite a bit of lip. In fact, it resembles a 'big lipped diplodocid' model produced by John Martin and Richard Neave (see Darren's article as linked to above), but I don't know whether or not this illustration predates it. In any case, it's another example of a sauropod depicted with curiously mammalian facial features. While he might get certain other details wrong, Brooks does an excellent job of portraying the animals' scaly hide - the minute detail makes it seem almost palpable.

Brooks also illustrates Camarasaurus, but sadly doesn't replicate the excellent technique used on Old Salty's skin. Instead, the Ugliest Li'l Sauropod seems to have been sculpted out of candle wax, and in imminent danger of melting in the heat. The animal's shape is pretty much there, and it has a nice muscular tail, but this is probably one of the most extreme examples of Sibbickish Michelin Man dino-skin that I've seen. The animal's right hand has also morphed into something else entirely, and has become rather shapeless and generic, like David Cameron's face.

This being an unusually far-ranging kids' dinopedia, we're even treated to a spread-spanning illustration of Mamenchisaurus, the sauropod known for its proportionately ridiculous neck. This scene was again illustrated by Roberta Polfus, and if nothing else just seems bizarrely devoid of vegetation, as if the animals were wandering around a neatly cultivated palace garden, or invading an arboretum, with a distraught man with a large fork and flat cap presumably just out of frame. The lack of foliage certainly adds to the strangeness of it all - as if the creatures weren't surreal enough. I do like the stripiness and countershading, but there's some unfortunate noodle neck going on here (and the beast toddling over the horizon just looks hilarious. "Ooh, petunias!").

And finally...I've talked about 'Ultrasauros' plenty of times before. While Jim Jensen's chimeric beastie might never have existed in reality, it will always be fondly remembered as a staple of '80s and '90s dinosaur books, where it was mostly depicted as a sort of Giraffatitan on steroids - as it is here (by Jean Helmer). It seems apt that, when compared with the solid brown brachiosaur up front, the ghostly white 'Ultra' takes on the quality of a phantasm or illusion; something that was never really there. Aficionados of '80s dinosauriana will be happy to hear that the book makes sure to include that famous photo of Jensen touching up his baby's reconstructed forelimb.

The Childcraft Annual series will continue...

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Dinosaurs! The 1987 Childcraft Annual - Part 1

Back in July, JT Covenant used a comment on my review of Ladybird's The Lost World to point me to a book that they thought I'd enjoy. I can happily say that they were right on the money. In fact, finally receiving this hefty old thing through the post (it came from the US) sent me quite giddy with glee. Not only is it illustrated by a panoply of artists, all with wildly varying styles, all of whom are credited (including Greg Paul!), but it's virtually a comprehensive encyclopedia of '80s palaeoart memes. Some are tiresomely familiar, but there are also some very weird ideas in here that have long since been rendered obsolete. To cap it all, it's from the very year I was born. It's Dinosaurs! The 1987 Childcraft Annual.

I wasn't familiar with Childcraft, but it is apparently a "multi-volume illustrated anthology for children" that has been around since the 1930s (or so says Wikipedia). Dinosaurs! is impressively comprehensive for a kids' book, covering a tad under 300 pages (excluding the glossary, index etc.), and is richly illustrated throughout. One doesn't have to go any further than the cover to find Bakker and Sibbick references, including what appears to be a weirdly hornless version of Sibbick's Normanpedia Ceratosaurus. This is explained inside as follows:

"Most scientists think that only the male certaosauruses [sic] had a horn, and that they used this horn...when fighting each other at mating time."

Damn those Most Scientists and their constant baseless speculation! No wonder no one listens to a word they say.

It's always fun when artists replicate others' interpretations of certain animals, but then alter their poses and place them in different situations. The very specifically quirky creatures become characters of their own, and it's enjoyable to keep up with their continuing adventures through the pages of various unrelated kids' dinosaur books. Here, artist John Dawson has his very Sibbickian ceratosaurus happily devouring a camptosaur carcass - until Old Man Allosaurus turns up to drone on about the good old days when there were only tetanuran theropods around here, the freakishly large tree ferns were greener, and speculatively fluffy juveniles did as they were told.

While Dawson's ceratosaurs are at least adopting notably different postures to Sibbick's, his Allosaurus is altogether more cheekily familiar to anyone who knows the Normanpedia well. Yes, it's eating while lying down (which is actually a nice idea in itself), but the torso section instantly gives it away. The head, with its forward vision-blocking face nubbin, is a dead ringer, and the position of the right arm is identical. Even the colouration is remarkably similar. Still, Dawson was far from unique in slavishly reproducing Sibbick's slightly odd, arm-flexing take on Big Al - why, its plastic mould-friendly chunkiness even meant that it was immortalised in toy form.

In addition to the typical post-Normanpedia Sibbick clones, Dinosaurs! manages to include the obligatory Bakkerian Deinonychus, always running at full pelt, always sporting a fetching dewlap. Admittedly, this is a particularly well executed (by Jean Helmer) example of  the meme, with lovely detailing and a very dapper red-headed colour scheme. I like the composition, with the impression given that the animals are tumbling down the side of the page in pursuit of their quarry (Tenontosaurus, of course, illustrated on the opposite page).

Besides, at least copying Bakker ensures that your dromaeosaur won't end up looking like...this thing. There's something quite enjoyably dainty and delicate-looking about this Velociraptor, what with its tiny hands and rather diminutive sickle claw. It's just a product of unfortunate '80s thinking, which saw artists suppressing the very birdlike traits of these animals (when they weren't just copying one another. The artists, that is). Here, artist Robert Hynes pairs Wile E Raptor with his eternal foe, the angry squatting Protoceratops. Spoiler: things don't end well.

Elsewhere, the most '80s Oviraptor possible (it has a mane of cool blue feathers, but otherwise steers well clear of being birdlike) noshes messily on someone's abandoned eggs. This one's by Colin Newman. I do love the technique used for the sky, but the animal combines a Sibbickian concentric ring skin pattern with a finely polished finish reminiscent of a 4x4 vehicle purchased by a money-crazed, wantonly aggressive businessperson. The nose horn was widespread in reconstructions at the time, and was the result of a misinterpretation of an incomplete skull (the crest was broken off). Where the mane started out, I'm not sure; it must have seemed quite radical at the time. These days, of course, we know that oviraptorosaurs were feathered like birds (although no one told Papo).

Ornithomimosaurs always looked thoroughly indecent in art, so it was a relief for palaeoart fans everywhere when firm evidence was discovered that they were fully floofed-up after all. While artists had, by this time, moved away from the terrifying '70s visions of spindle-limbed monstrosities with tiny human fingers on the far-away extremities of seemingly endless long, thin arms (the better to reach through the tiny crack between your wardrobe doors), '80s ornithomimosaurs could still look a bit creepy. I do admire Jim Pearson's technique here - it's rather reminiscent of John McLoughlin's work. But Christ...the eyes. The eyes alone. Even discounting the worryingly humanoid anatomy of the arms, with their clawless, frog-like fingers, those huge, wet eyes are just plain disconcerting. Brrr.

So that we may forget that last illustration as quickly as possible, here's one (by John Francis) of some Coelophysis attempting to set the land speed record for basal Triassic theropods. Shades of Bakker's "Syntarsus" here, although thankfully without the little backward-projecting wedge of feathers on the head.

For whatever reason, perhaps the most 'old school' theropod illustration (in execution if nothing else) stars none other than Sexy Rexy, here shown being overly affectionate towards a hadrosaur, who has unfortunately been accidentally asphyxiated as a result. It's got it all - green-grey warty dino skins, a number of identical smoking conical volcanoes, and even a swamp. It's a wonderfully painted piece, though (by Kinuko Craft), and for all that it's quite retro in appearance, it's still aged much better than...

...This. There isn't a lot I can add. And no, Spinosaurus being all stumpy-limbed isn't a vindication of vintage illustrations that depicted it with a head so generic as to be shapeless. (I can see you commenters coming a mile off.) With apologies to Jim Pearson, because hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing, and I do like your style.

Speaking of outdated interpretations...would you believe that one Gregory S Paul� produced illustrations for this book? Paul's illustrations stick out like an especially well-researched and anatomically correct thumb among all the Sibbick-u-like dinosaurs - in particular, his accurately fat-necked apatosaur is a remarkable sight in a book like this. But I'll feature that another time. For now, here's a remarkably prescient feathered non-avian theropod; or at least, it would have been, were it not for the true identity of the animal it's intended to represent. For this remarkably dromaeosaur-noggined creation is, in fact, supposed to be Avimimus. As in, the oviraptorosaur. Yeah, we can laugh about how literally wrong-headed this is, but the animal was very poorly understood at the time. Typically, artists just copied John Sibbick's even more inaccurate version (at least the body in Paul's is nearer reality) as seen in the Normanpedia, and you'll note that Paul has the animal's remiges attached along its second digit. So very many artists still can't get that right.

And finally...Troodon has been subject to a few peculiar hypotheses over the years. Everyone's familiar with Dale Russell's 'Dinosauroid', the comical green lizard man that made quite a name for himself in '80s and '90s dinosaur books, before being pecked to death by a swarm of feathered maniraptorans. However, few recall the one about Troodon being the only known carnivorous ornithischian.

No, really.

It's not so surprising in the light of troodontid teeth being misinterpreted as belonging to a pachycephalosaur, and possible omnivory in Troodon has been discussed again more recently (notably by Holtz et al.). However, Dinosaurs! is the only children's book I've come across to give the 'Troodon as ornithischian' idea a proper airing (and a life reconstruction by Roberta Polfus). The text describes the animal as 'looking like Hypsilophodon', so that's what we get in the illustration. Well, sort of. Over on Facebook, Patrick Bate remarked on how the dinosaurs were lacking in texture and simplistic-looking when compared with the mammal up front, which is "drawn down to the tiniest hair". This is very pertinent, and one gets the strong impression that the artist wasn't entirely sure what they were supposed to be drawing...which isn't too surprising. Imagine the brief...

Coming up next: more '80s! More! This book cannot be contained in a mere single post.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: The Superbook of Dinosaurs

Given the despairingly awful recent parliamentary election result in the country in which I happen to live, it's a good thing that Vintage Dinosaur Art is on hand to cheer everyone up. Especially as I've been quite looking forward to writing about this one - it might mostly be a fairly typical book of the period (1985), but it features a few tropetastic pieces that definitely raise a smile. Furthermore, much of the art is actually pretty good - at least at a technical level - and there are one or two early pieces from now well-established names. It's no less than The Superbook of Dinosaurs!

The cover (also featured inside) is instantly recognisable as a Bernard Robinson piece, what with its hyper-detailed scalation and distinctly reptilian dinosaurs. We've looked at Robinson's work plenty of times before, but to recap, he was largely active in the '70s and '80s and produced a great deal of illustrations featuring convincingly detailed and fleshy dinosaurs that were nevertheless of a rather old-school, lizardy bent. This is mostly evidenced in their rather puny Knightian limb musculature; note the toothpick arms on the T. rex above. Hopelessly outdated as it now is, his work still has a palpable solidity and 'reality' about it, and certainly left a great impression on many childhood dinosaur enthusiasts. Plus, I can't help but feel that more people should try giving Tyrannosaurus glassy black eyes. Like a doll's eyes...

As is typical, the book covers more of Palaeozoic life than is really necessary for a title that is ostensibly about dinosaurs, and so we are presented with a highly detailed Dimetrodon basking on what appears to be the surface of Mars. It's tempting to ascribe this to Robinson too, but a signature in the bottom right informs us otherwise - why, it's none other than J. Sibbick himself! These days, Sibbick has developed a unique style that is recognisable from forty paces, but one would be hard-pressed to pin this piece on the palaeoillustration stalwart; it's clear that his technique evolved quite quickly between this and the Normanpedia, which is still recognisably 'Sibbick'. It's also interesting to compare this work with a later illustration that appeared in Dinosaurs: a Global View, particularly in terms of how the palaeoenvironment in the latter is far more richly realised.

Onwards to the Triassic, and back to Bernard Robinson. A spread on the 'rise of the dinosaurs' is dominated by a Robinson illustration of a Plateosaurus being mauled by a, shall we say, rather fanciful-looking Ornithosuchus (not a dinosaur, but a croc-line archosaur). Although armour-plated, the latter still suspiciously resembles some sort of basal theropod dinosaur here; not surprising, as the text describes it as such, reflecting what was for a long time the consensus view on the animal's phylogeny. In any case, I love that the Ornithosuchus-thing has managed to grab a great wad of plateosaur flesh in its jaws. Looks painful.

Curiously, this spread also features a photograph of a nicely made model Ornithosuchus that is proportioned rather more like how it is envisaged nowadays, i.e. with a shorter neck and larger head, more croc-like than dinosaur-like. This looks like something that might have come out of The Age of Dinosaurs: a Photographic Record, although I can't find my copy to confirm [EDIT: it isn't - see comments].

Happily, it's not all hyper-detailed scaliness all the time here, and as the book enters the Late Jurassic we are treated to this monstrosity. Darren Naish looked at this piece back in 2010 as part of his examination of the 'freaky giraffoid Barosaurus meme' - it dates to 1975, and unfortunately I can't shed any more light on who the artist was (as none of the pieces in the Superbook are credited). As Darren noted, this illustration seems to take the famous Bakker barosaurs as its starting point, and then splices in elements of racehorses for a thoroughly horrifying beastie mish-mash.

While the giraffe-like flexi-tongue is troublesome enough, it's that steroidal musculature that truly unsettles. It's almost certainly an example of Dinosaur Renaissance thinking taken rather too far - an over-reaction to the outdated views of the palaeontological 'old guard'. Yes, sauropods certainly weren't blobsome fatties that floated around in fetid swamps all day, their eyes glazed over, barely good for anything except reliably being elected as the Tory MP for Mid Sussex. However, they also weren't out declaring that they, in fact, had the power, battling Skeletor and making rubbish friends designed to pad out the action-figure range. What I'm saying is, it's creepy. Really creepy.

As the Superbook moves on in to the Cretaceous, so it wheels out the marginocephalians, the headbutting, tyrannosaur-foiling heroes of the children. The illustration of two pacycephalosaurs having at it (above) is intriguing, and may well be another very early Sibbick (although don't quote me on that; it's not credited). The striped blue and orange colour scheme is rather natty, and I like that they're placed in a topographically varied setting. On the other hand, there's something rather odd about their necks, which seem distinctly sinewy rather than necessarily muscular. The two animals also seem to be missing each other, although that could well be intentional. Not too bad for the time, in any case.

It's probably best you don't pay too much attention to that Triceratops skeleton. Here's looking at you.

Elsewhere, we have this rather poor Burian knock-off, in which the ankylosaur has been slightly repositioned in order to be delivering a mild reprimand to its classically well-fed gorgosaur opponent. Take that, fatso!

And before you know it, we've reached The End of an Era. There are a few palaeoart memes present in this illustration, not least those of the 'gangly dork hadrosaur' and the disturbing, tiny-handed, stilt-legged ornithomimosaur. Absolutely any reference material on ornithomimosaurs will tell you that their fingers were actually quite long, so how exactly they kept ending up with miniscule, often disturbingly humanoid hands in palaeoart is something of a mystery. Equally, the 'gangly dork' hadrosaur, with its peculiarly long, thin legs, truncated arms and determinedly upright posture, is arguably just as far from the mark as even the Burian-era tail-draggers. But then, such is the power of the palaeoart meme.

Having said all that, I do like that the illustrator of the above piece thought to include (what I take to be) a champsosaur rather than a generic 'modern-style' crocodilian; it's a nice reminder of that oft-forgotten reptile group that survived the K/Pg event, only to go extinct later. The poor sods.

So, the dinosaurs are gone, but the book goes on to remind us of all the wonderful institutions in which we can view their fossilised remains and even, occasionally, the odd lovingly-created diorama...such as the one above. Granted, the grey colouration is a little dull, but the model Rexies still have a pleasingly lean, 'modern' appearance for the era. The book only mentions these as being on display in 'a museum', so I'd love to hear from any readers who have any inkling as to exactly which museum this was displayed in [EDIT: it was the Smithsonian! Again, see comments].

And finally...seemingly from the same artist who brought us the 'giraffoid barosaur', here we have a classic 'size comparison chart' featuring a procession of disturbingly veiny, oily brutes, including one of the oddest Iguanodon I've seen since that one with the theropod head. I shared this picture over on the Facebook page, and comments on the spiky-thumbed one's neck compared it to "an Egyptian-style hair piece" (Saka Haumavarga) and "a squash" (Blake � Murch�). Talcott Star, meanwhile, remarked on the animal's proximity to Procoptodon, "just in case there was any doubt as to where that pose came from", while Benjamin Hillier remarked that the human had to be (British actor, TV host and archaeological dig enthusiast) Tony Robinson (owing to his diminutive stature). I don't know, Benjamin - based on the below comparison, I think they might be on the money...

Photo by Niroot.