Now I know you've all run into these "Whatever-Ology" books recently. (SO much Flash in that website. All I wanted to do was learn who the illustrators were. They're Wayne Anderson and Douglas Carrel.) The art is nice for the most part, but the main thing that gets me all chagrined is that they're full of stuff. Maybe I'm being an old lady about this thinking that an illustrated book should stand on the merits of it's artwork and not on how much glitter they can package in, how many jewels can be embedded in the pages, and how many books-within-books they contain. One last thing:
People inventing creatures to inhabit alternate universe versions of Australia, please stop doing this. (Yes, that's a kangaroo-dragon and a koala-dragon. Because no matter what kind of animal you are, living in Australia will make you evolve into a marsupial.)
Manga, manga, manga. Now you know I like Anime. But it's also sadly impossible to discuss the "let's learn how to draw by drawing in this one style" trend without sounding Old (I wonder if earlier illustrators had the same problem criticizing the Draw Fifty Whatever books?) A gateway drug is a gateway drug (there's got to be a better analogy for "a thing that gets you into whatever your passion is"), but it just seems like every "learn how to draw" book out there is in this same one style. Wait a second...
A. WTF?
B. Hmmmmm?
For a while, it looked like I was safe from the 3-effin'-D trend in the bookstore... until I saw this:
(Note: I couldn't find the credits for the illustrators for either this or the Manga books. Go figure.)
This series of oversized books might be the most annoying thing I saw at the book store. Again, maybe I'm an old lady but I thought the point of an illustrated book about dinosaurs was to -call me crazy- illustrate the dinosaurs, showing what they looked like.
Can you even identify this? Did the person who drew (or badly rendered, from the look of it) this picture even know what this animal looks like? (HINT: Draw a cross between a weird emu and a weird ground sloth. Add fluffy feathers. Add Wolverine's claws.)
A less recent trend in Books that Do Things Books Don't Normally Do is the Book That Makes Noise. These were wildly popular about fifteen years ago, and I recall thinking to myself the first time I saw one, "man, why don't they do a Guide to Bird Calls in this format?" (They eventually did, a decade later. Which is kind of hilarious.)
You don't see publishers making these very often anymore. The most recent variation I found was this, which hurts my inner child:
Why, why, why?
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Hey, take a look at this thing, which exists:
Now, why do I not think strapping a hummingbird feeder to your face is a good idea?
