Dinosaurs: A Celebration review - part one
Hello and welcome back to Mesozoic Mind. Today, we're going to look at comics juggernaut Marvel, but rather then looking at their fictional saurian characters (like Devil Dinosaur), we're gonna take a look at a limited 4-part series from 1992 an from defunct Epic Comics, Dinosaurs: A Celebration. It was released at the height of the Dinosaur Renaissance just before Jurassic Park began, and in the Dark Age of Comic Books. Palaeo-artist Steve White serves as editor for the series (and insert J. Jonah Jameson joke here).
With the book's format out of the way, lets start off with Issue #1, Terrible Claws and Tyrants. Notice the big green, drooling t. rex on the cover, with what I believe are sauropods reflected in its eyes. Nice touch to it, and I find it fine as a whole, slit eyes not withstanding.
Admittedly, sometimes its the other way around and they look better... but still my point stands.
The encyclopaedia segments consist for the first issue:
- Origins and evolution of dinosaurs
- Herraresaurs
- Ceratosaurs and Coelurosaurs
- Carnosaurs
- Deinonychosauria (what they call raptors)
- Pterosaurs
- The Triassic
Art for these sections are mostly provided by Una Fricker. They all seem to be fairly decent but not the best I've seen, and don't exactly hold up all that well by modern standards, for reasons I'll explain later.
The first comic sequence is about Archaeopteryx catching a meal but then has to escape being a meal from two Compsognathus.
The art by Geoff Senior is fairly flat but bright, with colours contrasting to making for pleasing ones.
The archaeopteryx looks fairly decent for the time (even if its colours aren't what they're supposed to be). Can't say the same for the Compsognathus, however: lack of feathers not withstanding, this was a time when it was thought of as a two-fingered relative of tyrannosaurs, resulting in it looking like a bald chicken demon. At least the countershaded rusty red and yellow colours and variation of them are nice to see.
The story flow of it by Graham Marks is fairly basic, where the archaeopteryx catches a bug but has to flee from the two compies up a tree filled with pterosaurs being good enough to follow. A coming storm throughout it also provides tension, culminating in lighting striking a tree the urvogel is in, sending it into a watery grave to become the famous fossil with its head flung back. (Oops, spoilers!)
- Accuracy - 5/10
- Aging - 4/10
- Presentation - 8/10
- Art - 8/10
- Storytelling - 7/10
- Rereadability - 7/10
The second comic sequence is the one I was introduced to this very series, one about a family of Baryonyx and how their fishing trip gets interrupted by both passing herbivores (Hylaeosaurus and Pelorosaurus) and attacking fellow carnivores Altispinax.
First off, I love the artwork here courtesy of Richard Dolan. Its not only vibrant, but detailed. It reminds me of the likes of Frank Frazetta's style. The story is also quite good, with the behaviour standing out: I like the mother Baryonyx hissing and defending her young while fleeing from sauropods she would have no chance against, as well as them diving to escape predators. No awesomebro fights here people!
Admittedly some of the dinosaur designs do seem a bit shrinkwrapped, and pronated theropod hands are the norm here. Also, the dinosaurs make some odd poses in it they probably couldn't do, like the barys in the provided images.
- Accuracy - 6/10
- Aging - 6/10
- Presentation - 8/10
- Art - 8/10
- Storytelling - 7/10
- Rereadability - 7/10
Third is about the dromaeosaur Deinonychus back when it was scaley, doing what they so best: hunting the ornithopod Tenontosaurus.
I admit I'm not a fan of the art by John Watkiss here. It's way too brown and muddled for my tastes, and often a bit too cluttered to understand.
The story also takes an inane and awesomebro turn where an oddly weedy and misshapen Acrocanthosaurus shows ups and briefly terrifies the deino pack away before it gets mauled and eaten to death so easily. Its one of those tropes of dinosaurs I despise as it conflicts with actual biology and what we know of actual dromaeosaurs let alone Deinonychus as usually eating prey smaller themselves as a safer option rather then multitonne prey that could squash them with little effort.
Do I even need to mention how inaccurate the Deinonychus are? Hell, even the Tenonto looks more like weird sauropods with overly long necks, seen in other depictions of the time for whatever reason.
The Deinonychus story is the weakest of the four in my opinion. Mix the the obvious issue of scaly dromeosaurs and awesomebro behaviour with a messy, unreadable art, and you've got my least favourite of the strips.
- Accuracy - 4/10
- Aging - 3/10
- Presentation - 5/10
- Art - 5/10
- Storytelling - 6/10
- Rereadability - 4/10
The final comic is not about a theropod, but pterosaurs, specifically those of Jurassic Germany, like Pterodactylus and Germanodacytlus. its very good to say the least. While it doesn't hold my attention as easily as the three others, I still love it regardless. It helps its written by the great Dan Abnett.
Notice the pterosaurs even have pycnofibers, the hairlike structures pterosaurs have. This was in 1992, and keep in mind, when even a good chunk palaeoart at the time had them in the nude.
- Accuracy - 7/10
- Aging - 8/10
- Presentation - 8/10
- Art - 8/10
- Storytelling - 7/10
- Rereadability - 8/10
So how does overall the first issue of A Celebration hold up?
If there's one thing all of the stories do, its some pretty decent dynamic art and a sense of motion, as expected from a comics company and staff primarily to do with superheroes and action. The pterosaur comic excels the most at it.
Behaviour is a mixed bag. For the most part, behaviour of the animals are realistic, like avoiding conflict when they can. Of course, some are less good then others (*looks back at Deinonychus comic of them dogpiling a bigger predator with way too much ease*).
The narration for the stories are fine, nothing special. However, I do feel there's something about the deinonychus one that is a bit more pretentious and dryer then the rest.
Also, there's a disclaimer at the very start of each books about classification, specific terms, and how inexact palaeontology can ger. Pretty nice to do, even if there are some less then well-aged stuff in it ("Nanotyrannus" is definitely just a young rex for one).
A 1990's palaeo-work obviously isn't going to either have that much feathers, and Dinosaurs: A Celebration is so far no exception. Its most obvious in the encyclopedia sections, where even the oviraptorid Avimimus, which even back in the 1980s was often depicted as feathered in a world of scaled depictions, looks like... this.
 |
| YUCK EWW GROSS AUGH *faints* |
Don't need to mention pronated hands for the theropods. Its standard by this point.
Just a sampling of other inaccuracies and outdated parts in the sections are
- Ceratosaurs died out in the Jurassic (tell that to abelisaurs).
- Coelurosaurs aren't a real group ands are just all small theropods, rather then a specific clade. It often seems very simplistically incomplete by modern standards.
- Dromaeosaurs (or Deinonychosaurians as they are called) are described as using their sickle claws to slash prey. They used them to lath and grip onto prey, known as of 2011 .
- Postosuchus is featured in one illustration as a quadruped, when its bones tell us it was bipedal.
Let me know if I'm missing anything here.
It doesn't help a lot of the dinosaurs in these sections are very different from the same genera in comic sections to the point looking nothing alike, often for the worse, likely as a result of a lack or miscommunication between staff. For instance, notice the Compsognathus above, or the Baryonyx or Deinonychus with the ones below.
Admittedly, sometimes its the other way around and they look better... but still my point stands.
The classification presented also seems very simple by modern standards too, might I add too.
- Accuracy - 5/10
- Aging - 5/10
- Presentation - 8/10
- Art - 5-8/10
- Storytelling - 7/10
- Rereadability - 7/10
- Overall - 7/10
I admit that while not exactly the most consistent in quality, and contains some trite inaccuracies and bears its age in many spots, the first issue of Dinosaurs: A Celebration is fairly enjoyable, depicting some interesting scenarios and some pretty good artwork for them (for the most part).
Credit to Carnufex on Paleo Media Central Discord for informing me of this, and no I'm not gonna follow up issue next.
Sources and References
- Carney, R; Vinther, Jakob; Shawkey, Matthew D.; d'Alba, Liliana; Ackermann, Jörg (2012). "New evidence on the colour and nature of the isolated Archaeopteryx feather". Nature Communications. 3: 637. Bibcode:2012NatCo...3..637C. doi:10.1038/ncomms1642. PMID 22273675.
Manning, Phillip L.; Margetts, Lee; Johnson, Mark R.; Withers, Philip J.; Sellers, William I.; Falkingham, Peter L.; Mummery, Paul M.; Barrett, Paul M.; Raymont, David R. (September 2009). "Biomechanics of Dromaeosaurid Dinosaur Claws: Application of X-Ray Microtomography, Nanoindentation, and Finite Element Analysis". The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology. 292 (9): 1397–1405. doi:10.1002/ar.20986. PMID 19711472. Weinbaum, J. C. (2013). "Postcranial skeleton of Postosuchus kirkpatricki (Archosauria: Paracrocodylomorpha), from the upper Triassic of the United States". Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 379 (1): 525–553. Bibcode:2013GSLSP.379..525W. doi:10.1144/SP379.7. S2CID 129092753.
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