Let's read Dahlov Ipcar's _The Wonderful Egg_!

I am genuinely upset that I am just now learning who Dahlov Ipcar was.  Here is a woman illustrator who lived right in my backyard and whose art has the beautiful colors of Mary Blair, the stunning patterns of M. C. Escher, and the whimsical creatures of both.  She passed away recently at just shy of 100 years old and I'm just now learning about her.  So it goes.



But never mind that now. I know about her now, and my life is the better for it. And in my research, it turns out that Ipcar wrote and illustrated a dinosaur book. The Wonderful Egg was originally published in 1958 by Doubleday and Company Inc.  This reproduction was published in 2014 by Flying Eye Books, and it is as close to the original edition as possible.



I have to say, this is as good a reason as any to write a book about anything.



So this is very definitely a book about dinosaurs for children in the late 1950's.  The palette is brown and green because Real is Brown and, between dinosaurs and all those cartoon turtles and alligators, there is something in the human brain that just wants big reptilian things to be green.  The appearance of the various animals is dubious, but I'm willing to let it slide because I just love this art!  Click for big.



The book sets out to find the identity of a mysterious egg - eggs being the one given commonality between every animals that lived in dinosaur times.  I know, but we're going to ignore it for now.  Look at this jolly Triceratops!  He's pretty remarkable for the time, walking fully upright with tail and head held high.  I want to ride on him.



This Stegosaurus is a little dated but I love him so much!  That smug smile! 



These Pteronodons really are awesome for their time.  The one in the back is a little "Flew right off the set of 'Fantasia'"-ish, but the fellow in the foreground has a proper beak and everything.



I'd have sworn the Ornithomimids in the background came from a book written decades later.  The one in the front is a little flopsy in the tail area, but I like that he's about to munch on some tasty artichokes.



I really have nothing to add to this dude except that of all the 50's Tyrannosauruses I've ever seen, I think this guy is my favorite.  He is at least in the top percentile.



We get a montage of hadrosaurs including this deeply-odd-to-modern-eyes Parasaurolophus.  I do like those pink paws though.



Now I know Mosasaurs in reality looked more like a lizard trying it's damndest to be a whale, but look at this guy!  This is the best old-school toothy sea-dragon Mosasaurus I've ever seen.



And in staggering contrast, the wonderful egg finally hatches and we have ourselves an Archaeopteryx illustrated as a proper bird in 1958.  That's amazing!  Heck, there are recent depictions of the poor critter that cannot shake the "lizard with feathers" cliche.  This is beautiful!

-----

Art of the Day!



I've been so taken with Ipcar's work I just had to do a Master Study.

I'm a Guest on "Deep in Bear Country"!

Earlier this week, I went down to Bear Country to talk about the insane Berenstain Bears mini-storybook "The Berenstain Bears and Too Many Dinosaurs the Dinosaurs" with Phil Gonzales and fellow special guest Talcott Starr.  That episode is up now, so enjoy my deep and ridiculous voice discussing dinosaur-themed entertainment in the pre-"Jurassic Park" era, Mama Bear looking ready to eviscerate everyone, and whether the Bear youngsters can ever enjoy fun things (SPOILERS: probably not).

The Bookshelf Tour Part Three!

Art books, reference books, and picture books this time, as well as some books I already mentioned in previous posts.



Jan Brett's Christmas Treasury - I love Jan Brett's art and this is a very nice omnibus of her charming Christmas-themed picture books.

Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation, Charles Solomon - Outstanding, must-own art book and condensed history of (mostly American) animated shorts and features, with a few stops along the way to briefly discuss animated commercials, music videos, and special effects.  Starts with "Gertie the Dinosaur", ends with "Jurassic Park", and has a wealth of animation art throughout.

Your Favorite Seuss -Basic, but good, collection of art from Dr. Suess' classic picture books.

After Man and The New Dinosaurs, Dougal Dixon -The first of many speculative biology books!  I've reviewed both books before and while they are dated, they are essential for the science-fiction illustrator's collection.

The Alien Life of Wayne Barlowe - Criminy, I need to show more love to Barlowe on this here blog.  We'll run into his better known books later, but this is a very nice overview of his art and career.  It makes me long for a book showcasing all his creature designs for films, though.

Gnomes, Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet - Essential, gorgeous book.  I love the world-building so much.

Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee and Good Faeries, Bad Faeries by Brian Froud - Faeries is yet another must-have for your illustrator's library.  It's gorgeous and inspiring.  Good Faeries, Bad Faeries is a fine companion.

Arthur Rackham, James Hamilton - Haven't had a chance to properly read this one yet, but it's a very nice collection of Rackham's illustrations.

Mythopoeikon, Patrick Woodroffe - A former library book I discovered at my college's book sale and it blew me away.  Great psychedelic art.

Since the World Began: Walt Disney World - The First 25 Years, Jeff Kurtti - An essential part of any Disney theme park nerd's library.

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Birds: The Definitive Reference to Birds of the World,  Dr. Christopher M. (ed.) Perrins - Found this giant, beautifully illustrated book in Buck-A-Book and it's been in my library ever since.

The Encyclopedia of Animals: A Complete Visual Guide, Fred Cooke and Hugh Dingle - An illustrated animal encyclopedia is a must-have and this one's pretty good.



And here's a pile of picture books, any one of which I'd recommend heartily.  We're almost finished with the tour!

-----

Sketch of the Day

The first "Final Fantasy" continues to be strange.

The Triumphant Return of Fird and the Firffels!

Look at what came in the mail last week!

Okay, this might take some explanation, especially if you're new to the blog.

Way back in the first year, one of the most popular posts I wrote mentioned the Firffels and my assumed history of the toy line. Many comments suggested I was very wrong about the Fiffels and that they had a much more interesting history. I made a follow-up post which itself became very popular. Sadly, it didn't look like there was any more to learn about the Firffels, since the book that introduced the characters, Whoever Heard of a Fird, was long out of print and what copies popped up as available were very expensive.

Well, a few weeks ago, I received the following email:

Hi there.

I was looking at your blog. My name is Shann Hurst, I'm an illustrator. I thought you might be interested to know that I've been working with Othello Bach and we're re-releasing "Whoever Heard Of A Fird?" Actually it's out and on sale now. Anyway, It's something we've really put a lot of work into and we're really excited about how it's turning out. If you have time, you're invited to look at the official website: www.whoeverheardofafird.com

Let me know how you like it.

Shann Hurst

www.wishenginestudio.com

I thanked Shann Hurst and ordered the book right away.  It took a while to arrive, which implies that it must be pretty popular and there's a lot of nostalgia for these characters.

And now that I've just finally read the book, I can see why.  The message is simple: be yourself.  But everything else in the book is so unusual and fun that the moral doesn't feel like a pill.

First off, obviously, the characters are all delightfully bizarre.  Boogie monsters, Panducks, Kangaroctopi, it's clear that Othello Bach had a lot of fun coming up with these creatures and Shann Hurst must have had a lot of fun drawing them.  Hurst's style itself is very unusual and almost surreal, and it fits the menagerie of friendly freaks.

Othello's writing is highly unique as well.  The book is much more text-heavy than I thought it would be, but it never feels bloated.  A lot of text is given over to poems and songs, some of which get downright philosophical.  And some of them are just fun.



My prediction is that kids -especially weird kids- are going to embrace this new edition of Whoever Heard of a Fird.  Hopefully, it'll renew interest in Othello Bach's characters.

-----

Sketch of the Day

Let's Look at Models and Draw Fifty Dinosaurs! (And other, weirder stuff.)

So, did everyone have a fun World Penguin Day yesterday?

One overlooked area of old Paleoart is the world of dinosaur models. (Never "dinosaur figurines" or, Heaven forbid, "dinosaur toys"?) A few years ago, I found much of my childhood collection intact and took a few pictures (all the images in this post are on Flickr, so click to see bigger versions).



From left to right, we have models from roughly the sixties, the eighties, and the nineties. The first row probably date from around the same time as a book we're about to explore.

The middle section is mostly made up of Invicta models. I got these in the 1980's when they were still a museum gift shop staple, but it turns out they were produced beginning in the 70's. That helps explain why all the tails are staunchly dragging along the ground. Finally, the three fellows in back are as far as I got in my attempt to collect the lovely Carnegie Collection. (And yes, there is a Dino-Riders Deinonychus lurking in the background; sometimes thrift stores are the best Thing.) Note the differences between the models from different years that depict the same (or similar) animals.



Here's a detailed look at that very strange 70's Tyrannosaurus. I know they hadn't found 'Sue' yet, but it's really hard not to make fun of those little flipper-hands, the dragon feet, the giant crotch, and the shark face.



Which brings us to these illustrations from Lee J. Ames' Draw 50 Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, published in 1977 by Doubleday and company.

The Lee J. Ames drawings (I am only including the final finished pieces here) are an excellent time capsule of how many prehistoric animals were thought to look *right on the cusp* of the "Dinosaur Renaissance". Here's a rather goofy looking Tyrannosaurus and an Emo Ornithomimid. As you can see, they are of a piece with the models above.



Iguanodon and Styracosaurus with very strange mouths, and a Hadrosaurus who appears to be suffering emotional problems.



And while they are a not-quite-mammal-but-close and a mammal, I couldn't ignore this buck-naked Cynodont and amazingly spry Indricothere.



Our next book in this grab bag is The Crocodiles Still Wait, written by Carol Carrick and illustrated by Donald Carrick. An oddly moving story of a mother crocodile raising her brood in the late Cretaceous period. The crocodiles themselves still look terrific and the dinosaurs...



They have not aged well. Heck, look at this... Troodontid? Ornithomimid? Your guess is as good as mine (I'm going to call him Derpy Claws):



Next up is The Largest Dinosaurs, written by the great nonfiction children's book author Seymour Simon and illustrated by Pamela Carroll.



An overview of Sauropods and their lives. The ink-wash illustrations can get a little strange. You may recognize the above illustration from my review of "Dinosaur Rock". This is basically the image of sauropods I had when I was very young: not big, dopey swamp-dwellers but still kind of goofy and rubber-necked.



As silly as this Brachiosaur is (those feet!), I love the dramatic perspective here:



Finally, and certainly the most unusual book we're going to see today, here are the dinosaur-centric scenes from Life Story, written and illustrated by the wonderful Virginia Lee Burton.



The book is no less than a dramatization of the history of life on Earth, starting with the formation of the seas and going on and on through to modern times and Burton's little house in the Massachusetts countryside.



Obviously, the animals are very stylized throughout, but I love the sheer scope of the book, and I adore Burton's playful folk art.

Next up, the most frustrating book of all...

----

Sketch of the Day! Eh, just some random stuff:

But I Don't WANNA be a Hypsilophodon! - Let's Read Some Stuff from a Classroom's Recycling Bin!

Happy 4/20 all you smelly hippies! Are any of you hallucinating that you are a different kind of "Hippie"? A Hypsilophodont I mean? Cause that's the subject of today's first book. Man, that was the most forced segway ever!



OK, seriously. Today's first book is Dinosaur for a Day, written by Jim Murphy and illustrated by Mark Alan Weatherby published by Scholastic Blue Ribbon books in 1992. It's a day in the life of a mother Hypsilophodon and her babies. The text is marginally interesting but the illustrations... holy cow!



A few details are outdated (ah, 80's Deinonychuses), but the full-page spread paintings are absolutely gorgeous. I would have taken more pictures but the book is a former classroom title and was falling apart in my hands. There's great, almost Guerney-esque stuff in this book, if you can find it.

Former classroom titles? Yes indeed, today's books were owned by a teacher friend who recently "weeded" her in-classroom science library. This brings up an interesting issue: how often, exactly, should a school go through it's nonfiction book collection? The wonderful Awful Library Books blog has many, many thoughts on this subject. And sometimes it's pretty obvious when a book needs to go:



This is from the book, Usborne Starting Point Science: Where Did Dinosaurs Go? Published in 1991 by Usborne Publishing Ltd. Written by Mike Unwin, illustrated by Andrew Robinson, Toni Goffe and Guy Smith. There is, sadly, no indication as to who did what though.

Aside from these little cartoon illustrations, the art in this book is remarkably generic. The most interesting "Vintage" feature here are the, uh, facts given. For example, the book helpfully informs it's young 1991 audience that all of the dinosaurs, even the little cute ones, were killed off -- but not by flowers.



Also, dinosaurs were "bigger than the lizards you can see today". Yeah.



But sometimes it isn't very obvious that a book is out of date. This painting is from a book with the insta-dated title of New Dinos! The Latest Finds! The Coolest Dinosaur Discoveries! Written by Shelley Tanaka, illustrated by Alan Barnard. Published by Scholastic in 2003.

As it happens, we've learned quite a lot since 2003. The artwork in this book is gorgeous but it's sobering how fast it became outdated. For example, here the artist looks like he is *just* warming to the idea of feathered troodonts.



But then you get to this page about Willo, the little ornithopod that appeared to have her heart preserved within her body. It was recently reported that further testing proved that lump isn't her heart at all. (Sad trombone.) And teachers, this is why we use primary resources whenever we can.

Brace yourself for this next one.



That there is meant to be Masiakasaurus.

Take a minute or two, let it all sink in.

Now, to be fair, the artist probably had no idea what Masiakasaurus looked like, beyond that strange skull. I'm still not clear as to what Masiakasaurus looked like, exactly; even today all the attention tends to be taken by those crazy teeth. And back in 2003, the only thing besides those terrible teeth the mainstream press could report on this animal is the fact that "he's named after Mark Knopfler, LOL Dire Straits really IS a dinosaur rock band hurpf-durpf!"

Tangent: If anyone calls your band (or something you like) a "dinosaur" in order to imply that it is "old and busted" or perhaps even an "epic failure", counter with this:

"Oh, so you mean it ruled the world unchallenged for well over 160 million years? Becoming the arguably most successful and diverse group of tetrapods ever known? And its descendants now rule the skies? (Dramatic pause.) Yeah, f*** you."

Anyway, Masiakasaurus knopfleri. The critter, a basal Abelisaur, probably looked pretty strange in life but probably not *this* weird.

Edit: Zach's comment below reminded me that I could have sworn that there was a recent reevaluation of what Masiakasaurus might have looked like floating around online. A quick Google search and voila! (Link goes to a Dinosaur Tracking article about the paper just in case it vanishes again. Here's the paper itself.)
----

Sketch of the Day! I liked the Parasaurolophus from the art card I shared yesterday, so after some "Pokemon" doodles, I decided to tell more of his story...

Let's read some Eye-Searingly bad Dinosaur Books for Children!

I'm going to impulsively discuss the world of discount dinosaur books for children, just in time for *next* month's Boneyard. (Edit: YAAAAY!!! Yes, people discovering me through S.O.S., I'm a bit of a dweeb. But hopefully a funny and informative one.)

Now, dinosaur books at least aren't as bad as cheap toy makers (if only the situation in this book was real). But they likewise tend to be a mine field of too little fact-checking, too much "aw, we'll just base everything on the most famous depiction of the animal in question." It takes a very long time for the new dinosaur finds that change out perspectives and shatter our very expectations of what these wonderful animals were like to filter into the public consciousness (if you don't believe me, ask your friends what a Tianyulong is and why everyone sh*t themselves when it was published).



As a shocking demonstration, I have for you two cheap dinosaur books I found in a surplus and salvage store. The first is creatively entitled Dinosaurs and if you must, it may be purchased at Amazon here. Or not, because the thing is mercifully out of print, but at least we know who to blame now.



Now, I should really let images like this one speak for themselves, but the print may get hard to read once I resize them (you should hopefully be able to click for big). For it's first trick, the book confuses Mei Long and Psittacosaurus (if you don't know from dinosaurs, I'm in no position to help you in understanding the rest of this post, but in this case the mammalian equivalent would be identifying a small, fluffy cat as a big, bristly boar). As an added bonus, the text refers to dinosaur eggs. Yeah.



The text in this one's a little fuzzy, but it's the most epic failure in the book. Here we have all of our favorite Ornithischians or "bird hipped" dinosaurs! You know, like Torosaurus and Psittacosaurus and Microraptor and Caudipteryx and Ara and...

...

...

Wut?

To be fair, I can see why that'd be confusing. But it's also the kind of thing that makes it clear you have no business writing a book about dinosaurs.





I can't tell if these are sad or hilarious in hindsight. (And yes, the top one does say "Torsaurus".)



Our next book is this thing, which I am very sad to see is published by Walter Foster, the famous art instruction book publishers. I was going to go ballistic over that title, but it turn out they're all like that (All About Drawing Sea Creatures and Animals! All About Drawing Horses and Pets! All About Drawing Vehicles and Trees!) It starts out with this handy scale guide for typical animals in the book:



Oh... wow...

Then gives us some handy -er- "Dinosaur Extremes". Again the text is fuzzy, but we get the good old "Troodon is the smartest dinosaur" trope again:



And finally, a selection of the dinosaur drawings themselves, with some text. LOOK AT THAT TRICERATOPS!!! Also, the fun fact about Baryonx is just strange and that cute Bearded Dragon has no idea why he's here:



(And guys... hey guys... guys...
Oshawatt or Snivy?

EDIT: Oshawott. Oshawoot always.)