***
I rescued this rather charming, but apparently unwanted work (copyright 1965) from a second hand bookshop for the princely sum of 40 pence (about 65 cents USD). Much nerdy glee ensued, as it contains almost every pre-Dino Renaissance clich̩ you'd care to mention, from swamp-bound blobby sauropods to man-in-a-suit theropods shuffling menacingly about, looking for their zimmer frames. Oh, and all the dinosaurs look spectacularly, crushingly bored Рas well they might, as apparently the Earth was just one giant savannah grassland throughout the Mesozoic, which must have got monotonous. Onwards then with Dinosaurs of the Earth (a Nugget Nature book from Collins), illustrated by one Sol Korby, online searches for whom turn up an awful lot of portraiture. Obviously he was just jobbing with the dinosaur thing, and the rip-offs of classic palaeoart are plain to see.
The cover sets the precedent. It's better quality than the material inside, but then it wasn't painted by Sol – apparently it's borrowed from the archives of the American Museum of Natural History. The upright, tail-dragging allosaurs aren't so bad for 1965, although bizarrely they are missing their first toe on each foot. Never mind, nobody'll notice.
The inside cover features this absolute doughball of a Styracosaurus – clearly, all that anachronistic grass hasn't been good for him - alongside a couple of wallowing generic sauropods. Yeah, it's going to be one of those types of books. The title page, meanwhile, features a bizarrely-angled flying tyrannosaur with the label “ALLOSAURUS” – and still no first toe!
Like so many dinosaur books aimed at kids, there's a bit of a preamble through the Palaeozoic before you get to the Mesozoic good stuff. Naturally, any populist dinosaur book/movie/attraction/toy range worth its salt will bafflingly feature Dimetrodon for no really good reason other than it looks cool, and so it pops up here, cheerily greeting a rather sullen-looking Eryops. Of course, this jocular state of affairs can't last long, and on the next page Dimetrodon has turned mean and, uh, mounted Eryops in a savage act of predation out on the pleasant rolling grassy meadow. Weird, for sure, but there's far stranger to follow.
The book is written as a 'journey' through prehistory (in a suitably matter-of-fact 1960s fashion). Arriving in the Triassic, we come upon some Plateosaurus – that aren't dragging their tails! - and a bizarre rat-like creature with long hind legs. Oh wait, that's Coelophysis.
Happily we revert to 19th Century-level palaeontology when we arrive in the Jurassic and find a chimeratastic “Brontosaurus” lurking in a pond of convenient depth. It's very obviously 'inspired' by a certain painting by one Charles R. Knight. Over the next few pages we are also introduced to Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus (which is using its trademark uphill body plan to, er, pluck reeds from the riverbank), animals we are assured “were so heavy that they had to stay in water most of the time...to support the weight of their bodies” as well as to keep well away from “the more intelligent carnivores on land”. The screaming you hear is coming from SV-POW.
Alas, poor old phylotarded Bronto is no match for Allosaurus, who casually strolls up and takes a bite out of its gamy neck.
Stegosaurus next, united at last on a double-page spread with Ankylosaurus, which lived a mere 85 million years in the future. The Stegosaurus is the standard hump-backed Burian-style affair, but the Ankylosaurus is a truly strange, squat, neckless armadillo-like beast. Admittedly it was still quite common to portray the animal in that fashion at the time, but that doesn't make it any less freakin' weird.
Moving on to the Cretaceous, and it's time for the hadrosaur “swimming party”. Oh yes. Not a lot to add to this wacky image of a toad-like Parasaurolophus and mutant Corythosaurus gaily going for a dip. Enjoy.
(And hey, “Trachodon” too!)
Finally, it's time to bring in the big guns, by which of course I mean Tyrannosaurus, here in full-on Godzilla mode. It's pretty hard to picture this fat old tyrant wheezing along after its hadrosaur prey, but here it is waddling into the horn of an anachronistic Monoclonius. You'd have thought that ripping off Chaz Knight's infamous T. rex vs. Triceratops painting would've been easier, but never mind – here's the once-popular centrosaurine instead, here described rather unkindly as an “ugly beast” and even “the most dull-witted animal of them all”. With wording like that, you just know it's going to end up as T. rex feed. And it does – although it looks rather unconcerned about the whole thing, just standing idly by while T. rex takes a nibble.
There's plenty more of the sludgy brown-grey-green Mesozoic world to discover in this wonderful book, but unfortunately my undergraduate thesis won't write itself, so that's as far as I'll delve for now. One last thing worthy of note – the entry for 'BIRDS' in the A-Z 'Encyclopedia of Prehistoric Animals' that appends the book:
“Birds appeared during Jurassic times and can be traced back to a common Thecodont ancestry with the reptiles.”
As if anyone would believe that these days! Ha ha ha. HA HA HA.
***
Thanks again to Marc for contributing an excellent piece to the Vintage Dinosaur Art series. Be sure to follow the Dinosaur Toy Blog if you don't already. Besides fun writing on admirable and laughable toys, the group also manages to squeeze in some great anatomical information.
If you've got something you'd like to post about here, hit me up at the email in the sidebar. As always, share your own scans or photos of old dinosaur illustrations at the Vintage Dinosaur Art flickr pool.
I believe I had a copy of this when I was a kid. Either that or I saw it at the library, I know I've seen those illustrations before.
ReplyDeleteI love that the Monoclonius is about to gore T.rex in the dick. Now there's an art meme we need to start.
ReplyDeleteThe book's title is also fantastic. "Dinosaurs of the Earth" as opposed to, say, "Dinosaurs of Mars" or "Dinosaurs of the Moon."
I'd love to see that animated, Zach. I thought the title was funny, too. There's also a blog called "Dinosaurs of Earth" that seems to just take wikipedia pages and paste them into blogger with no formatting fixes.
ReplyDeleteThis is a funny one! Defenseless prey items that just stand still once a bite gets taken out of them, hahaha. The Dimetrodon vs. Eryops one is particularly awkward looking. And the Coelophysis... What.
ReplyDeleteRushing here to make my "Dinosaurs of Mars" joke, but I see Zach has beaten me to the punch!
ReplyDeleteActually "Dinosaurs of Mars" could be a pretty awesome title. Lots of directions you could take it - from a serious attempt to draw Dinosaurs adapted to Martian environments, to a Syfi channel movie marathon.
I have my Dinosaurs of the Earth sitting with me as I write. I won this particular one from the Brooke Bond National School Awards in 1968 as an art prize at our little school in Kent. Oddly enough, I had won the same book a year or two previously, so I used to have two copies. I loved reading them under the covers, so shame on you for your snarky sniggering knowing comments! These books gave many a young child growing up in the deprivation of early '60's Britian a glimpse of another world. I loved Sol Korby's loose clumsy painting style at the time, and tried to emulate it.There is an encyclopedia of prehistoric animals at the back, often painted in a more primitive manner. But it was engaging nevertheless. Subsequently I grew up to make a modest living making visual art of various sorts, and it's a tough way to make ends meet. It's easy to laugh at Kirby's inaccurate renderings, but for him it was almost certainly one of many jobs and many deadlines and he may well have been paid poorly for his efforts. Not all of us can be extremely talented and insightful, although hindsight makes it look easy. This book is one of many visual presentations that imprinted deeply on me as a child. Others were television programs, test cards etc. Incorrect or not, I occasionally reference stuff from this book for my own visual art. For me, it represents another world, another universe of the imagination.
ReplyDeleteI have my Dinosaurs of the Earth sitting with me as I write. I won this particular one from the Brooke Bond National School Awards in 1968 as an art prize at our little school in Kent. Oddly enough, I had won the same book a year or two previously, so I used to have two copies. I loved reading them under the covers, so shame on you for your snarky sniggering knowing comments! These books gave many a young child growing up in the deprivation of early '60's Britian a glimpse of another world. I loved Sol Korby's loose clumsy painting style at the time, and tried to emulate it.There is an encyclopedia of prehistoric animals at the back, often painted in a more primitive manner. But it was engaging nevertheless. Subsequently I grew up to make a modest living making visual art of various sorts, and it's a tough way to make ends meet. It's easy to laugh at Kirby's inaccurate renderings, but for him it was almost certainly one of many jobs and many deadlines and he may well have been paid poorly for his efforts. Not all of us can be extremely talented and insightful, although hindsight makes it look easy. This book is one of many visual presentations that imprinted deeply on me as a child. Others were television programs, test cards etc. Incorrect or not, I occasionally reference stuff from this book for my own visual art. For me, it represents another world, another universe of the imagination.
ReplyDeleteI have my Dinosaurs of the Earth sitting with me as I write. I won this particular one from the Brooke Bond National School Awards in 1968 as an art prize at our little school in Kent. Oddly enough, I had won the same book a year or two previously, so I used to have two copies. I loved reading them under the covers, so shame on you for your snarky sniggering knowing comments! These books gave many a young child growing up in the deprivation of early '60's Britian a glimpse of another world. I loved Sol Korby's loose clumsy painting style at the time, and tried to emulate it.There is an encyclopedia of prehistoric animals at the back, often painted in a more primitive manner. But it was engaging nevertheless. Subsequently I grew up to make a modest living making visual art of various sorts, and it's a tough way to make ends meet. It's easy to laugh at Kirby's inaccurate renderings, but for him it was almost certainly one of many jobs and many deadlines and he may well have been paid poorly for his efforts. Not all of us can be extremely talented and insightful, although hindsight makes it look easy. This book is one of many visual presentations that imprinted deeply on me as a child. Others were television programs, test cards etc. Incorrect or not, I occasionally reference stuff from this book for my own visual art. For me, it represents another world, another universe of the imagination.
ReplyDeleteI have my Dinosaurs of the Earth sitting with me as I write. I won this particular one from the Brooke Bond National School Awards in 1968 as an art prize at our little school in Kent. Oddly enough, I had won the same book a year or two previously, so I used to have two copies. I loved reading them under the covers, so shame on you for your snarky sniggering knowing comments! These books gave many a young child growing up in the deprivation of early '60's Britian a glimpse of another world. I loved Sol Korby's loose clumsy painting style at the time, and tried to emulate it.There is an encyclopedia of prehistoric animals at the back, often painted in a more primitive manner. But it was engaging nevertheless. Subsequently I grew up to make a modest living making visual art of various sorts, and it's a tough way to make ends meet. It's easy to laugh at Kirby's inaccurate renderings, but for him it was almost certainly one of many jobs and many deadlines and he may well have been paid poorly for his efforts. Not all of us can be extremely talented and insightful, although hindsight makes it look easy. This book is one of many visual presentations that imprinted deeply on me as a child. Others were television programs, test cards etc. Incorrect or not, I occasionally reference stuff from this book for my own visual art. For me, it represents another world, another universe of the imagination.
ReplyDeleteI have my Dinosaurs of the Earth sitting with me as I write. I won this particular one from the Brooke Bond National School Awards in 1968 as an art prize at our little school in Kent. Oddly enough, I had won the same book a year or two previously, so I used to have two copies. I loved reading them under the covers, so shame on you for your snarky sniggering knowing comments! These books gave many a young child growing up in the deprivation of early '60's Britian a glimpse of another world. I loved Sol Korby's loose clumsy painting style at the time, and tried to emulate it.There is an encyclopedia of prehistoric animals at the back, often painted in a more primitive manner. But it was engaging nevertheless. Subsequently I grew up to make a modest living making visual art of various sorts, and it's a tough way to make ends meet. It's easy to laugh at Kirby's inaccurate renderings, but for him it was almost certainly one of many jobs and many deadlines and he may well have been paid poorly for his efforts. Not all of us can be extremely talented and insightful, although hindsight makes it look easy. This book is one of many visual presentations that imprinted deeply on me as a child. Others were television programs, test cards etc. Incorrect or not, I occasionally reference stuff from this book for my own visual art. For me, it represents another world, another universe of the imagination.
ReplyDeleteI have my Dinosaurs of the Earth sitting with me as I write. I won this particular one from the Brooke Bond National School Awards in 1968 as an art prize at our little school in Kent. Oddly enough, I had won the same book a year or two previously, so I used to have two copies. I loved reading them under the covers, so shame on you for your snarky sniggering knowing comments! These books gave many a young child growing up in the deprivation of early '60's Britian a glimpse of another world. I loved Sol Korby's loose clumsy painting style at the time, and tried to emulate it.There is an encyclopedia of prehistoric animals at the back, often painted in a more primitive manner. But it was engaging nevertheless. Subsequently I grew up to make a modest living making visual art of various sorts, and it's a tough way to make ends meet. It's easy to laugh at Kirby's inaccurate renderings, but for him it was almost certainly one of many jobs and many deadlines and he may well have been paid poorly for his efforts. Not all of us can be extremely talented and insightful, although hindsight makes it look easy. This book is one of many visual presentations that imprinted deeply on me as a child. Others were television programs, test cards etc. Incorrect or not, I occasionally reference stuff from this book for my own visual art. For me, it represents another world, another universe of the imagination.
ReplyDeleteI have my Dinosaurs of the Earth sitting with me as I write. I won this particular one from the Brooke Bond National School Awards in 1968 as an art prize at our little school in Kent. Oddly enough, I had won the same book a year or two previously, so I used to have two copies. I loved reading them under the covers, so shame on you for your snarky sniggering knowing comments! These books gave many a young child growing up in the deprivation of early '60's Britian a glimpse of another world. I loved Sol Korby's loose clumsy painting style at the time, and tried to emulate it.There is an encyclopedia of prehistoric animals at the back, often painted in a more primitive manner. But it was engaging nevertheless. Subsequently I grew up to make a modest living making visual art of various sorts, and it's a tough way to make ends meet. It's easy to laugh at Kirby's inaccurate renderings, but for him it was almost certainly one of many jobs and many deadlines and he may well have been paid poorly for his efforts. Not all of us can be extremely talented and insightful, although hindsight makes it look easy. This book is one of many visual presentations that imprinted deeply on me as a child. Others were television programs, test cards etc. Incorrect or not, I occasionally reference stuff from this book for my own visual art. For me, it represents another world, another universe of the imagination.
ReplyDeleteI think Clive must have had a seizure as he hit the Publish button. Reading the rather sarcastic review above was a trip down memory lane for me. I once owned a copy of this book myself, and I remember how it fired my imagination as a lad, filling me with awe about the immensity of time, and the fact that these amazing creatures once walked on this planet. It should be given credit for that at least. Must admit I'd remembered the illustrations as being closer in quality to those of Charles Knight, if not by Knight himself, but it's great to see them again nonetheless. And I never realised how full of anachronisms and inaccuracies the book was, although I've known for some time that the brontosaurus didn't need to spent its life submerged up to its neck in swamp water in order to support its own body weight, and that iguanodon had a much more horizontal posture than the one I remember depicted in this book.
ReplyDelete