Dinosaurs: A Celebration review - part three
It's baaack! I finally got to finish this Marvel-created Dinosaur Rennaisance-era series, or at least the third issue.
The lineup for this book, titled Bone-Heads and Duck-Bills, goes this time:
- Ornithopods
- Hadrosaurs
- Pachycephalosaurs
- Mammals
- The Cretaceous period
A soneone who actually likes ornithopods, I'm going to like this book.
I'm just not going to cover the informational segments today. They're boring to read for me, and they drag. I may do them seperately instead.
Anyways, this segment takes place in Mid-Cretaceous Australia as it seperates from Antarctica, focusing on just how devastating it is to the creatures as lava erupts up in the already bleak polar conditions, specifically a leaellynasaura and a predator known as Kakuru, here depicted as a nose-crested theropod (though we are not sure what it actually was). It was made as dinosaurs from southern Australia were being studied and picked up in the palaeosphere, the publivc intrueged by the ide opdf dinosaurs abvle to live in cold climates when it was thought none could, an extension of the warm-blooded model the Dinosaur Rennaisance was popularising.
Both dinosaurs featured notably have basic feathers, sonmething that is actually backed up by skin impressions found in other dinosaurs and seems likely more and more with every year, probably chosen because the writer thought the creatures needed filaments to keep warm. It certainly has helped the sequence age well from a modern standpoint, at least to me.
- Accuracy - 7/10
- Aging - 6/10
- Presentation - 8/10
- Art - 8/10
- Storytelling - 9/10
- Behaviour - 8/10
- Rereadability - 9/10
The Australian sequence is a very good first sequence for the comic, giving some lesser known groups a time to shine however briefly.
The second comic sequences depicts a fight between bull Parasaurolophus. They (though by they I mean the males only - interesting choice) notably have the skin sails you see in older paleoart, most notably Charles R. Knight's, not to mention are very shrinkwrapped rather then the muscular creatures that seem more likely these days. While not accurate (and nothing like the good for the time one on the cover), they still look quite beuatiful regardless, thsnks to their elegant frames and colour scheme, almost like a fantasy creature. That's because the art by Phil Gascoine is of a painterly style that's lovely to look at.
The text by Graham Marks is notably written in second person, putting you in the mind of the parasaur and doing what I haven't seen that done in many print works (that I can remember). It also attains a good balance of slight anthropomorphism without going overboard in any way. To be fair, this applies to most of the stories, but it stands out here.
The parasaurolophus story is one of the best in Dinosaurs: A Celebration, thanks to the awe-inspiring art and unique narration. does what might be the hallmark of the best palaeomedia: it makes the mistakes in the depictions forgivable.
- Accuracy - 5/10
- Aging - 5/10
- Presentation - 9/10
- Art - 9/10
- Storytelling - 9/10
- Behaviour - 8/10
- Rereadability - 9/10
Next comes a story about juvenile Tyrannosaurs who ambush a flock of pachycephalosaurs after an older male steals their kill, also written by Graham Marks. Note that despite being in the Pachyephalosaur chapter, it's the rexes who are the POV characters, and notice I discuss them more then the pachys.
If those pink rexes look familiar to any reader, that's because the artwas created by Luis V. Rey, a mexican palaeoartist who is quite iconic in palaeoart, with bold colouring and all sorts of crests, flanges, spines, feathers, and all sorts of other soft tissue covering his dinosaurs, introducing many in the 90's and 2000's to the more speculative side, like a precusor to All Yesterdays. This is probably one of his earlier works, and so has a much more scratchy and loose feel to it then the rest of his portfolio, which I presume is due to different media used. The big ostoderms are the most notable part of them here, reminds me of the V. rexes from King Kong. The pachycephalosaurs themselves? Good for the time.
The sequence has aged quite well out of all the stories: there aren't any big errors I can discuss. Sure, you can nail the finer details on the T. rex and Pachys (like the huge scales) or the date being given as 70 million years ago (they lived later), but otherwise it's good to me.
- Accuracy - 7/10
- Aging - 7/10
- Presentation - 8/10
- Art - 8/10
- Storytelling - 8/10
- Behaviour - 8/10
- Rereadability - 9/10
The final story is about an Alphadon at night nearly being eaten by a baby albertosaurus only to escape thanks to another certain theropod.
Nekkid troodons are already off to me, so this is that done right for me, as it were. The piercing gazes and the slender looks also help. And while many of the dinosaurs are roughly the same as the ones from the Struthiomimus story, the creatures here seem way less shrinkwrapped then them, for the better.
I love the the theme in the story of the food chain, with the Alphadon first being a predator to a lizard (itself a predator to insects), then becoming prey, then it's predator becomes prey. Indeed, it ends on this
No matter how small, how insignificant, be they advanced saurian or agile mammal... went it comes down to it... no species has the monopoly on the will to survive.
Damn. Impressive way to close things off, especially when the other sequences also dealed in survival front and centre. At the same time, it takes care not to villify any creature, with the baby albert's death being treated with solomnness as its parents find it, and all creatures are talked up so none are neglected.
If I had to give one criticism, the Alphadon doesn't do much, it's a passive role that only serves to be chased by other dinosaurs. Granted I am not suggesting it should try to fight anything, but still.
Also, overall, none of the stories, and indeed throughout the entire series, have names given in the table of contents, unless the stories are part of the encyclopedia sections.
- Accuracy - 7/10
- Aging - 6/10
- Presentation - 8/10
- Art - 8/10
- Storytelling - 8/10
- Behaviour - 8/10
- Rereadability - 9/10
Issue #3 is what I consider the best out of the series, with excellent artwork and engaging stories, not to mention ages fairly well compared to other issues, and the narration for every sequence is excellent. I would recommend it first, even over issues #1 and #2.
Honestly, I'm not going to try and review the final book in the Celebration series, at least not for a while, mostly because the first comic sequence was drawn like... this.
Yeah, I won't touch it any time soon. I'm not a masochist, people. So goodbye for now.
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