Re: Opinions wanted on 'Age of Reptiles' (comic novel)

[Christopher Srnka <theclaw@sprintmail.com>]

Leonidus A.K.Giganotosaurus wrote:

> Anyone have any good or bad opinions or comments on two books, 'Age of
> Reptiles : The Hunt', and 'Age of Reptiles : Tribal Warfare'? They're
> both full-color graphic novels, no dialogue, yet extremely expressive.
> I'm planning on buying them, after money is less scarce.
>
> --
> Leonidus
> alex@voyager.net

These are the graphic novels by Delgado, right? (I think that's the
name...can't find my copy right now...) You're right that the artwork is
fairly expressive; as an illustrator and sometime comic book artist, my
opinion of his work (in comparison to other graphic novelists) is that he
handles visual storytelling very well and is very good at indicating scale
and depth in his panels. His composition of the pages and the panels
themselves is also very good. He does take some liberties with dinosaur
anatomy, however. Many of his rendered species are indistinguishable, or
if they are recognizable due to obvious characteristics (a Ceratosaurus'
horns, or a Carnotaurus' distinctive skull shape, for example), they
sometimes still seem to share characteristics with other species, making
for a sort of "generic" look to some of his dinos. This is not to say that
his dinosaurs are uninteresting or lacking in characterization; in fact,
he imbues his dinosaurs with facial expressions that I doubt the dinosaurs
would even be physically able to make, and he uses coloring and horns,
etc., to give his dinosaurs individuality. Speaking from an artistic
standpoint, I don't particularly like his style; this is my personal
preference. I tend to like artwork with heavy contrast and lots of shadow
used to define mass and shape (chiaroscuro rules!! Let's hear it for
Caravaggio!!). So my feeling is that it is good stuff that could have been
done better. It is entertaining fantasy, but I wouldn't present it as a
model for a scientific dinosaur anatomy or behavior study.

Okay, that was rather long-winded...sorry....

-Chris Srnka