Science Comics is a series from the “:01 First Second” imprint of Macmillian publishers that highlights various science topics in vibrant and engaging comics. Dinosaurs: Fossils and Feathers is the paleontological addition to this lineup, written by MK Reed and illustrated by Joe Flood.
Other entries in the Science Comics lineup vary in how general or specific they get, but this is one of the more general ones. While this book has the bad habit of implying that the term “dinosaur” applies more broadly than it should, it does at least take a relatively broad view of paleontology, at least in the first half of the book (it does increasingly narrow its focus to true dinosaurs the further on you read).
Where this book shines is in its strong focus on the history of paleontology, which was a pleasant surprise when I first picked up this book. Ranging from humorous cartoons to rather pretty landscape scenes, we get the illustrator’s take on numerous important moments throughout the development of this field of science, from the more well-known figures like Mary Anning or Cope & Marsh of “Bones Wars” fame, to less famous individuals like the Baron Franz Nopcsa or Mignon Talbot.
The artwork is dynamic and exciting, and generally pretty accurate, though there is definitely a bit of a bias towards scaly dinosaurs, and the feathered theropods have a bit of that early-2000s “feather sleeve” thing going on, as opposed to the more typical wing shape that their hand feathers should have. Even dinosaurs that were probably scaly are occasionally more “gnarly” than they perhaps should be, particularly in the crocodile-like scutes seen on some of them. (You can see it a bit in the above picture of T. rex, particularly in the tail.) In terms of general impressions, though, I don’t think readers will pick up any visuals that will be too hard to unlearn if they come across more accurate illustrations later.
While, as I mentioned, there’s a bit of a tendency to allow the word “dinosaurs” to at least imply something broader than it should, the information presented is otherwise pretty solid, and surprisingly specific sometimes, as well. As this book covers so many topics, such specifics only receive relatively brief treatment, but it’s still cool to see topics like Nopcsa’s hypothesis on “insular dwarfism” (see also Europasaurus: Life on Jurassic Islands) or Anysuya Chinsamy-Turan’s work on dinosaur osteology get depicted in a broad-appeal book such as this.
Dinosaurs: Fossils and Feathers delivers an informative and engaging overview of the history of paleontology, and will leave readers with a decent knowledge base of general topics in the field. I recommend it for my readers, and as I’m a sucker for the history of science, it earns my Stomp of Approval as well! It looks like a couple other Science Comics titles regarding Sharks and Birds of Prey might also have some prehistoric content making them relevant to my blog, though I haven’t had the chance to read them yet.
For some other prehistory themed comics and graphic novels that I HAVE read, see my reviews of Paleocene, Did You Know Dino? Hell Creek, History of the World in Comics, Europasaurus: Life on Jurassic Islands, Ted Rechlin’s Jurassic, Sharks, and SUE, Abby Howard’s “Earth Before Us” #1, #2, & #3, and Hannah Bonner’s cartoon prehistories.
Dino Dad Reviews 
6 comments