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!

Vintage Dinosaur Art: The Age of Dinosaurs

Originally published in 1978, with this larger format edition appearing (under a different publisher) in 1987, The Age of Dinosaurs is filled with art that will be instantly recognisable to many readers in their 20s and 30s. The cover is the very epitome of the beautifully painted, but hideously outdated palaeoart of the '70s. This hugely fat apatosaur, with its elephantine wrinkliness, lizardy head and mountainous flesh heap body, screams "WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!" at modern audiences. Yet artist Bernard Robinson (for it was he) has made it possible to appreciate this work on artistic merit alone.

Robinson was especially adept at scaly skin textures, so it's a little strange that his apatosaur is so damn wrinkly. Nevertheless, he remains consistently good at lifelike shading and lovely landscapes. His work evokes what is, for many, a nostalgic vision of tail-dragging, cold-blooded behemoths. Of course, there's something a little strange going on in this picture, as an extremely perky Barosaurus is striding into the midground. Darren Naish has already provided an excellent commentary on this image, so over to him:

"It’s as if the Barosaurus is an inter-dimensional tourist, just in from a parallel '1960s Bakkerian' universe and now strangely juxtaposed against the flabby, massively over-weight swamp-dwelling behemoths of the Zallinger era (hey, great idea for a comic)."

You know, that really is a great idea for a comic - a 'when worlds collide' scenario where classic palaeoart reptilimountains meet the pumped up steroid-o-saurs of today. It's tempting to think that the old guys wouldn't last five minutes, but they'd certainly have a significant weight advantage. Maybe a Robinson-esque apatosaur could be deployed like a rolling log down a hillside, squishing countless little feathery theropods on the way down.


Speaking of which, Robinson was actually rather good at painting Archaeopteryx, too; not perfect (the feathers are occasionally attached to the wrong digits), but they at least look like not-quite-birds, rather than little lizard gits with scaly dragon faces and tiny 'extra fingers' (a trope I like to call 'Wings...but with hands!'). See the individual in the image above, and corresponding close-up below. Note that the contour feathers blend with one another convincingly, rather than sticking out all over the place and making a mess.

There are many more Robinson lovelies in TAoD, not least this painting of fighting pachycephalosaurs. I remember this one particularly vividly from my childhood, and I believe that's down to the unnervingly lifelike, disconcertingly staring face of the individual in the foreground. It's a remarkable piece, with the animal's nodule-encrusted visage threatening to have your eye out; a real case of dinosaurs being in your face. It's an alien, otherworldly creature made remarkably real. It's perhaps also worth noting that the pronounced musculature and generally quite svelte appearance of the animals is unusually progressive for '70s-era Robinson. And the sky's nice, too.

Equally fetching is this lovely painting of an Ichthyostega pair in their steaming, swampy home. Unfortunately, a great deal of it is covered up with a dirty great text box, in which author David Lambert claims that animals couldn't see any reason to live on dry land; they just reached the shore, shrugged their incipient shoulders, and sunk back into the bog. The lousy layabouts. You're doing nothing for vertebrate evolution, you squishy-skinned slackers!

While I remain a big fan (in spite of the occasional...unpleasantness), there's more to TAoD than just Bernard Robinson. John Francis and Ross Wardle are the other two illustrators, although individual pieces aren't credited (or signed, as with Robinson's), so unfortunately it's difficult to figure out who produced what. Almost as unfortunately, a lot of the illustrations also appeared in the earlier Dinosaur World, and I really did review that one too recently to start wheeling out repeats. Nevertheless, one tends to get a wider view of the reused illustrations in TAoD, so it's possible to see, for example, just what that hungry T. rex was chasing. Gangly, anachronistic hadrosaurs, as it turns out.

Hurrah. There's also enough new stuff to pad out this post, including the below Triceratops, depicted charging through dirt with a wonderful momentum and carefully applied flying mud splatters. When compared with other animals in this book, the Triceratops' anatomy is really rather good, with the artist making effective use of the unusual perspective. On the other hand, this does make it all the more cringe-inducing that the animal's 'eyebrow' horns are shown protruding from its frill. Gah...

As if to underline my point about the Triceratops actually being pretty decent (but shame about the face), it shares a double-page spread with this bizarre retro ankylosaur, complete with stunted tail, pangolin claws and grumpy turtle mug. Seemingly, relatively accurate ankylosaurs only entered popular books en masse in the late 1980s, and then it was because they were all copies of John Sibbick's Euoplocephalus from the Norman encyclopaedia. As with the freaky giraffoid Barosaurus, freaky woodlouse ankylosaurs were an artistic meme that long outlasted their sell-by date.

The book is topped off by a marvellous 'dinosaur parade', featuring some excellent watercolour work and amusingly shifty-looking dubious-o-saurs. Leonard Nimoy is wisely running away, of course, but it's not the disinterested Tyrannosaurus he needs to worry about - not when that Stegosaurus looks so utterly furious. While ol' plateback might be too slow to catch him now, it knows exactly where he lives, and will shuffle back there and hide in the bushes until the following morning, when Nimoy will find himself brutally thagomised on his doorstep. Stegosaurus is patient. Stegosaurus always wins.

Paul Heaston's Facebook comment is also worth mentioning here.

"Dinosaurs? In the Shire?"

And finally...does anyone know the origin of the Gangly Dork Parasaurolophus? We've already seen them once in this book, of course, but the below is particularly superb example of this rather baffling meme. For a long time, Parasaurolophus - even moreso than other hadrosaurs - was depicted as having a highly upright carriage, noodle neck and piffling feeble forelimbs for no good reason whatsoever. Presumably just another case of artists copying artists copying artists.

And that's your lot! Coming up soon...a review of All Your Yesterdays. Hopefully.

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Prehistoric World

Apparently part of a series of 'Junior Illustrated Encyclopedias', Prehistoric World dates from 1987 and features the work of a variety of artists, with text by palaeontologist Michael Benton. (It's also another one of the books that Jon Davies has let me borrow - thanks again Jon!) Unfortunately, it's not always possible to identify which artist was behind which piece - it's a shame to not be able to positively ID the artist behind the striking cover art, for example (although the style looks familiar). However, the book does feature some very interesting pieces by one artist in particular: Bernard Robinson.

Among dinosaur enthusiasts, Robinson is perhaps best known for illustrating the hugely popular Ladybird dinosaur book (simply entitled Dinosaurs). As I'm sure I've said a good dozen times by now, Robinson's particular skill was in creating stunningly realistic scaly skin textures. The animals' hides are rendered down to the tiniest detail, with each scale glistening perfectly in the scorching sunlight. By the late 1980s, however, Robinson's dinosaurs were taking on a strikingly anachronistic appearance, even if they remained beautifully painted.

Robinson's Ladybird dinosaurs were definitely of the old swamp-dwelling lizardy school, and it's tempting to assume that the illustrations in Prehistoric World came later for a couple of reasons - firstly, some of the restorations appear notably more modern and secondly, the apparent inspirations behind some of the pieces seem to have changed. The weedy limbs and colour scheme on the above illustration are certainly consistent with Robinson's earlier work, but the strangely-shaped head and weird, leathery skin texture appear to owe a lot to 1980s Sibbick. (I feel obliged to mention the 1980s Spinosaurus too! Actually, it's a pretty good one. I should start a compendium of these.)

Out of all the Robinson illustrations in this book, the above is perhaps most noteworthy for deviating from what one might expect from the artist. The Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops look familiar enough (especially the latter), and Robinson frequently depicted small(/ish) theropods as being notably more active than most of his other dinosaurs. However, the ankylosaur (labelled "Ankylosaurus", but obviously Euoplocephalus), with its active posture and elevated tail, marks a remarkable departure from Robinson's earlier depictions of such animals, and even of large herbivorous dinosaurs in general. It too would seem to owe a lot to Sibbick.

Why hello there, Mr Crocodile. Aren't you quite the handsome crocodile? Why, yes you are. It's very nice and all, but I've only really included this one for two reasons:

1. Don't those birds look a lot like mallards?
2. Michael Benton's caption makes me laugh. "The last days of the dinosaurs. Most of the animals shown here - the giant crocodile, frogs, birds, mammals [cropped out], plants and insects - survived the mass extinction. The dinosaurs alone in this scene were doomed." They were doomed, I tells ya! Doooomed!

Back to the task at hand. The Iguanodon here are more classically Robinson, particularly in terms of skin texture; even so, although they are upright they lack the stiff, man-in-suit appearance of the Ladybird incarnation. The Hypsilophodon also show marked changes over earlier renditions, with alert postures, elevated tails and an overall Neave Parker-free look, while the freewheeling birds and adorable tortoise (mostly cropped out by the scanner, I'm afraid) add a pleasing believability to the scene. The sauropods, though, are bloody awful. Well, what can I say - I'm just caustic (for popularity's sake).

Robinson aside, the illustrations by other artists in this book tend to show the usual Burian and Zallinger influences (as above), which is a little yawnsome, and perpetuates a lot of the mistakes that Burian made through lack of available reference material. I am rather fond of the vibrant colours and painterly quality in the above piece, though, and the malevolent look on the face of the Allosaurus as it prepares to spring out on its victim is just marvellous.

This Triassic scene is notable for including the theropod Procompsognathus, which remains rather poorly understood. The restoration here is certainly rather odd, with its short neck, apparently near-vestigial arms and hands, and upright, tottering walk. Because it's known from such fragmentary remains, Procompsognathus doesn't often feature in art, although it did feature in Michael Crichton's Lost World novel, in which it had a poisonous bite and ate dung or something. (I'll anticipate a comment here and point out that, yes, in the movie the Robert Bakk...Burke character did mistakenly refer to "Compsognathus triassicus", conflating C. longipes and P. triassicus.) The Plateosaurus in the background are modelling for early '90s mid-market dinosaur toy sculpts, and don't look too happy about it. Maybe they're not being paid enough.

And finally...déjà vu. Didn't we see these guys a couple of weeks back? Yes indeed, it's yet more short-tailed, mast-necked Barosaurus, with the obligatory inclusion of an individual craning its neck down towards the viewer. It's a meme that lasted at least a decade, although it's not one that I remember from my childhood - by then, it was all about the grumpy grey Dorling Kindersley model Barosaurus, and of course art based on that skeletal mount. Note that the wild weight guesses here refer to "Ultrasauros", another happy reminder that you're reading a dinosaur book from the 1980s.

I'll be back soon! Sorry about the delay this week - Real Life got in the way, although quite pleasantly for a change. There won't be such a delay before the next one, promise, and I've got more of Jon Davies' books to get through!

Vintage Dinosaur Art: Pocket Book of Dinosaurs

First published in 1984 (with this edition appearing in 1987), the Pocket Book of Dinosaurs from Kingfisher (and Michael Benton) is one of those A-Z 'dino dictionaries' that were seemingly so commonplace back in the day - so much so that, when Thomas Holtz sat down to write a dinosaur encyclopaedia back in 2001, he declared (or so we're told) that "THE WORLD DOESN'T NEED ANOTHER A-TO-Z LIST OF DINOSAURS!" Equally typically, it is awash with bland, samey illustrations of dinosaurs standing around, not doing much. As always, though, the 1980s can be relied upon to provide at least some interesting material, especially when one considers how the artwork fits into the long timeline of palaeoart.

By far the best artwork in this book is provided by Bernard Robinson, whose work I've looked at before. The cover is another fine example that plays to Robinson's greatest strength - creating touchably real scaly skin textures. Robinson's dinosaurs may be scientifically obsolete now, but it's hard not to admire him as an animal artist.

Inside, Robinson provides some Mesozoic panoramas that perfectly capture the often awkward collision of old and new ideas that occurred in palaeoart at the time. The first one, depicting the late Triassic, is actually very modern-looking in many respects - check out the elevated tails of the Plateosaurus and the active running posture of the Procompsognathus.

It's in the mid-Jurassic where things start getting a bit more recognisably Dino Dark Ages. Of course, both the megalosaur and stegosaur look very active. However, the Megalosaurus - in a typical, Neave Parker-esque skulking mode - looks rather strange, with very thin legs and adorable, humanoid arms and hands. The Dacentrurus shouldn't even be there, being as it was a Late Jurassic dinosaur. Still, for the early 1980s it's not bad at all, and at least the dinosaurs - even the tail-dragging Cetiosaurus tramping merrily by in the background - look like very mobile, exciting animals.

Weirdly, it seems like the further forward in time one goes in these illustrations, the more the dinosaurs devolve into 1950s-looking fatties. The slug-like Stegosaurus is particularly awkward, as is the round, thin-necked thunderthighs Apatosaurus. The Ornitholestes skipping merrily along on the beach provides an amusing contrast, though - like it's on holiday from a Bakker book. "Hey guys, just passing through! Enjoy your swamps, losers!"

Man-in-suit Iguanodon alert! Actually, this one's completely overshadowed by the very distractingly hilarious peek-a-boo Anachronistic Cretaceous Megalosaurid™ (with five cute widdle fingers) sticking out from behind. It didn't scan particularly well but trust me - it looks like a cheap glove puppet. Come on Bernard, you're better than that! He could've at least given it a string of sausages or a truncheon.

I'm being mean, though. Nobody's perfect, and the vast majority of Robinson's work remains very beautiful. Although most of the dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous scene below look very odd by today's standards (webbed hadrosaur hands...yee-ikes), at least some of them - the little pied fellas up there at the top of the page - are absolutely stunning. The composition of this scene is also very effective, giving a good impression of the vast size of some of the animals, especially Triceratops. Unless you see it in a museum on a regular basis it's easy to forget just how big Triceratops really was, and this illustration provides an excellent perspective.

What of the non-Robinson stuff, then? Well, it's mostly pretty boring, and I'm not aware of who the illustrators were for each piece. However, there are some real gems. It seems that no 1980s dinosaur book is complete without a strange, strange ankylosaur, and here's one in the finest no-neck, stumpy-legged, short-tailed tradition. Love that head.

Then of course we have the bald Velociraptor with tiny hands:

The Oviraptor with, uh, mane (and nose horn):

And...Galli-what-in-holy-hell-is-this-o-mimus. The pencil-thin legs! The very deep, laterally compressed tail! That BEAK! Amazing.

And finally: here's a very interesting photo of the Natural History Museum (London)'s dinosaur gallery, from a time before the Diplodocus was moved to the main hall (long, looong ago - but do let me know if you remember it that way. I'd be very interested, although I might refer to you as 'grandad' from now on). The Triceratops, stage right, has subsequently been moved into the main hall and then back into the dinosaur gallery. Meanwhile, the half-a-Tyrannosaurus in the background has been dismantled and is presumably in storage, except for its mandible; Darren Naish blogged about it once, and a very fascinating read that was. It seems like the Natural History Museum went for a cool, moody atmosphere when they opened their 'new' dino gallery in the early '90s and, as such, it's really bloody dark in there. I kinda wish it was a bit more like it used to be, for the ease of photography and examination. But then, I'm just never happy. 'Til next time!