Ornithomimosaurs: they almost always get a mention, but are hardly ever in the spotlight (except for that crazy giant one). How fortunate, then, that The Child’s World saw fit to dedicate an entire volume in their series of dinosaur books to Ornithomimus, a pretty vanilla ornithomimosaur if ever I did see one. (It’s a good thing that there’s no such thing as a specialist ornithomimosaur researcher, so no one can take me up on that.) What’s more, it has some of the most charming illustrations in the entire series. The more ‘normal’ ornithomimosaurs aren’t given the attention they probably deser ..read more

Happy days, all! Even moreso than usual, our newest podcast episode dives into the phenomenon of stylized dinosaurs, as we discuss whimsical works from the early 70s by Maurice Wilson, whose work is all but forgotten but holds up a treat, and talk to the esteemed Johan Egerkrans whose angular, dynamic dinosaur art has captured the hearts of the palaeo world. Featuring forgotten Disney movies, exciting board games, pleasing shapes and lots of tea. How do you strike the balance between artistic simplification and accuracy? What draws so many of us to theropods over all other dinosaurs? Can Johan ..read more

No doubt you’ve seen part one of our deep dive into Záhada Dinosaurů, this obscure gem from Czechia, written by Jaroslav Mareš and illustrated by Barbora Kyšková. Obscure unless you’re Czech, that is, in which case you will probably know this book very well. The comments on this and other platforms tell me it’s a divisive book, with divisive artwork, and Jaroslav Mareš a divisive character. We’ve already seen most of the theropods, but a big aspect of the book’s infamy is actually its treatment of the sauropods, which is… well, you’ll see. Let’s put off the inevitable by looking at some Triass ..read more

Today’s book has gotten some attention recently on some of the palaeoart-centered Facebook groups we frequent. It features little-seen but high quality art from the nineties. Once I saw it, I knew I had to track this book down. This was not straightforward. Not only is this book only available in Czech, it is only available from Czech booksellers that only ship to Czechia. I managed to nab a copy off Rostislav Walica, so kudos to him. I now (maybe?) own the only copy of this book in the Netherlands! It’s called Záhada Dinosaurů, or “The Mystery of the Dinosaurs”. It came out in, you guessed it ..read more

Saltasaurus – the little armoured titanosaur that could – was a staple of popular dinosaur books in the ’80s and ’90s, following its naming in 1980. Sadly, since then, it has largely disappeared from view – displaced, no doubt, by certain much, much larger other South American titanosaurs. Of course, I’ve said all this before, not to mention hosted an art competition based around a terrible pun, but it remains as true today as it was 11 years ago. Alas, poor Salty. At least we still have all that media from back in the day, like this 1992 entry in the Dinosaur book series from The Child’s Worl ..read more

Happy Easter! Lots of cool stuff on episode 33 of the Chasmosaurs podcast. Natee can finally show some exciting stuff they’ve been working on, for a museum in Switzerland no less! Meanwhile, Marc scares all the kids away imitating a posh dinosaur from the Isle of Wight. For our Vintage Dinosaur Art, the crew takes a peek Inside Dinosaurs with a very unusual book about dinosaur anatomy, and Gemma realizes a long held wish as Ellinor Michel and Bob Nicholls come onto the show to talk about an extrordinary project involving a recreation of one of the long lost creatures of Crystal Palace. What is ..read more

In my previous post we took a look at Dinosaurus, a 1998 volume that I now know is essentially a compendium of the Looking At…Dinosaurs series, featuring much of the same dreadful artwork. (Thank you commenters!) For reasons best known to the publishers, artist Tony Gibbons – who was responsible for some of the weirder illustrations that appeared in the early issues of Dinosaurs! magazine in 1993 – was here let loose on dozens of pretty painful illustrations of dinosaurs, each more dreadful than the last. They’re rife with nonsensical anatomy, crude cartoonish stylisation, and egregious perspe ..read more

When I first started writing for this blog – many, many years ago now, possibly even as long ago as 2009 – I was accused of being overly-critical. “Who cares if a dinosaur’s gross anatomy shifts considerably from one illustration to the next?” “You’re pissing all over a classic!” You know, that sort of thing. And the accusers had a point, at least some of the time. As I’ve got older I’ve certainly mellowed – not to mention got to know a number of professional artists – and have even been called “effusive”. Well, once. I’m reluctant to trash something that an artist clearly put a lot of work in ..read more

Spring has come early, and episode 32 has come late! In this one, Marc, Natee and Gemma discuss the unusual, singular and slightly deranged dinosaurs from the swinging 60s by cult palaeoartist George Solonevic, as it appears in a book called Dinosaurs and More Dinosaurs. Marc interviews the esteemed Stavros Svenson Kulindadromaeus Kundromichalis on his fabulous book on the dinosaurs of the Triassic. Have we polished up our Swedish? Will Allosaurus emerge from your wardrobe and swallow you up if you’ve been bad? Would Solonevic be less well-remembered if his dinosaurs looked more, well, normal ..read more

A couple of years ago, we looked at the book The Last Dinosaur by Jim Murphy and illustrated by Mark Alan Weatherby. It was a piece of naturalist fiction from the late 80s that followed the adventures of a female Triceratops as the world around her was dying. It was a beautiful and odd little book, one that I remembered reading when I was young. Less famously, in 1992, Murphy and Weatherby reunited for another dinosaur adventure, this one not set during the extinction of the dinosaurs. It’s centered around Hypsilophodon and follows one dinosaur for a day in its life, inviting you to imagine yo ..read more