Postcards From Pangaea

  Being aware, through my favorite online sources on paleontology and paleoart, of the recent release of season two of the documentary series Prehistoric Planet , and having just taken a quick glance at the high production values and stunning visual effects, has made me remember the first series of this kind to be ever released, and what a big deal it was back then. Of course I’m talking about the BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs , produced by Tim Haines, narrated by Kenneth Branagh (or Avery Brooks i n the version broadcast in the USA) and released in late 1999 or early 2000, depending on where you lived . At the time, the most convincing dinosaurs we had ever seen on a screen were those created by Industrial Light and Magic and Stan Winston’ s Studio for the Jurassic Park movie (which just turned 30, by the way, dating from 1993) and its sequel The Lost World (1997), both works of fiction that, despite showing relatively accurate and highly believable dinosaurs compared to previou

More anthropomorphic animals! And another silly idea not related to dinosaurs! This will be a short one, since there is n’t much to say that isn’t already in the drawing itself. After my silly Iguana Jones piece , I thought of a way to graphically represent the popular “Eat The Rich” slogan that wasn’t the ubiquitous skull-and-crossed-cu t lery design (although I still wanted it to be there). So I thought that depicting anthropomorphic animals would be a good idea, as they are very commonly (and often successfully) used for political satire and social commentary (George Orwell’s Animal Farm novel la and Pink Floyd’s Animals album are two examples that immediately come to mind).   My take on the "skull-and-crossed-cutlery" logo for the Eat The Rich slogan. A lthough it’s often used as a markedly leftist/ socialist slogan, the phrase actually comes from Revolution-era France, and ha s a broader meaning of a warning against oppression and exploita

  Today I’m putting paleoart on hold for a while. Since this very blog doesn’t seem to have been indexed by search engines yet , which apparently means that I have a total rea dership of around ZERO people, I’m pretty sure nobody will feel disappointed. And we’re s taying on reptilian territory anyway. Moving from Iguanodon to another saurian with iguana teeth (and other body parts too, this time! ). I know, it’s a silly idea. But I thought it would look rather cool on t-shirts, mugs , posters, pillows and the like. This drawing represents the first time in years that I sat back at the drawing board (which is actually my kitchen, and I tend to draw while standing, but bear with me on this). I could have kept churning out dinosaur drawings like I used to, and maybe update my book for publication. But my heart wouldn’t really be in it, as that would imply an immense amount of work that right now I, having two kids and a full-time job, just can’t afford to spend on a project

  As we already saw , Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur to ever be described by science back in 1824. It was also the first evidence that big predatory reptiles had once walked the land (giant marine reptiles had already been discovered before, with Ichtyosaurus being described in 182 1 and Mosasaurus in 1822 ) . T he n in 1825 another paramount discovery would follow when British physician, geologist and paleontologist Gideon Mantell named and described Iguanodon (“iguana tooth”) based on several teeth and an incomplete skeleton. This time it was clear that this new prehistoric saurian was, unlike Buckland’s Megalosaurus , a herbivore. Or at least it was to Mantell, who very cleverly identified its remains, especially its teeth, as those of a huge plant-eating reptile from the Mesozoic era . Unfortunately for him, not every one of his peers agreed at first. French anatomist George s Cuvier identified the teeth as those of a rhinoceros from the Tertiary , an opinion that he s