{"id":34209,"date":"2025-11-08T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T09:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=34209"},"modified":"2025-11-07T11:49:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T11:49:00","slug":"paleo-the-complete-collection-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/11\/08\/paleo-the-complete-collection-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Paleo: the Complete Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Jim Lawson<\/strong>, with Stephen R. Bissette<\/strong>, Peter Laird<\/strong> & various (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels)
\nISBN: 978-0-486-80356-2 (TPB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a rare hominid who hates dinosaurs. Sure, an occasional chimpanzee might prefer a nice kitten or peanut, but most of us soft, hairy two-leggers can\u2019t get enough of our antediluvian predecessors. Apart from the cool way they look and the marvellous variety they came in, it\u2019s pretty clear they concentrated on eating their surroundings and\/or each other and never once tried fixing organised sports, or to appropriate more deckchairs than they could use, or wreck the planet.<\/p>\n

Seriously though, there\u2019s an irresistible, nigh-visceral appeal to all manner of saurians; small or super-sized. Most of us variously and haphazardly evolved hairless apes seem obsessively drawn to all forms of education and entertainment featuring monster lizards from our primordial past. That\u2019s especially true of comics.<\/p>\n

Most nations and many languages have packed countless pages with illustrated stories featuring cretaceous cameos and lizardly line-ups, but the USA has proudly gone one stage further than most by evolving a true sub-genre. As eruditely and so very lovingly explained by Stephen R. Bissette in his scholarly overview and Introduction \u2018The Paleo Path: Paleo and the History of Dinosaur Comics\u2019<\/em>, terrifying thunder lizards have been visitors and antagonists in literature and the arts for decades but it was comics – specifically a minor back-up feature in Turok, Son of Stone<\/strong> #8 (August 1957, by Paul S. Newman & Rex Maxon) – which finally gave them a voice of their own.
\n\"\"
\nWhat\u2019s a Dinosaur Comic?<\/em> One set in the creatures\u2019 own times and scenarios, with no human intrusion or overblown authorial invention. These are scientifically credible tales about animals living and dying on their own terms and in their own context: no cavemen, aliens, time machines or human heroes. All Then, All Lizard, All the Time…<\/p>\n

There have been precious few – and Bissette lists them all, including his own wonderful Tyrant<\/strong> – but for we devotees, paramount amongst them is the far-too occasional Paleo: Tales of the Late Cretaceous<\/strong> by Jim Lawson. Since 2001 the exceptionally gifted, prolific and apparently tireless Lawson has relaxed from his day jobs (most impressive of which are thousands of pages of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<\/strong> he has written and drawn for over two decades) to craft a string of 8 monochrome comics of fictionalised natural history and daily dramas of the big beasts.<\/p>\n

Here, Dover republished Lawson\u2019s 2003 graphic novel compilation, with the added attraction of two more unpublished issues: three all-new stories produced in collaboration with Bissette, Peter Laird and other equally dedicated devotees.<\/p>\n

In case the name still seems familiar, Lawson\u2019s other interests include motorcycles – one day I\u2019ll review his outrageous debut series Bade Bike and Orson<\/strong> – and fantastic fantasy. Other of his cartoon forays include Rat King<\/strong>, Planet Racers<\/strong> (with TMNT<\/strong> co-originator Laird) and in Dragonfly<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This mammoth man-free collection begins with that aforementioned Introduction before quickly thundering on to the meat we all crave, opening with Book One<\/em> (inked & lettered by Laird) focusing attention on a key moment in the life of a Triceratops<\/em> 70 million years from now, but in the other direction…
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\nThese \u201c from the Late Cretaceous\u201d are all delivered with earnest veracity and unsentimental authenticity, as of a show on Animal Planet, or perhaps the better Disney wildlife films of the 1960s & 1970s. Spectacular, eye-popping narrative takes the form of informed observation as a young, leathery, three-horned cow interacts with or avoids Quetzalcoatalus<\/em>, egg-stealing proto-rodents and voracious Daspletosaurs<\/em>, getting into a fix which nearly ends her young life. Nearly…<\/p>\n

Lawson inked his own pencils on Book Two<\/em> where an alpha male Dromeosaur <\/em>deals with a pushy young male in the female-heavy pack. Status quo re-established, the hunters collaboratively take down a massive Tsintaosaurus<\/em>, but when an apex predator Albertosaur<\/em> claims the kill, the pack\u2019s hierarchy again becomes an issue of survival…<\/p>\n

This issue was supplemented with \u2018Gratitude… A Paleo Short Story\u2019<\/em> wherein the most experienced pack female examines her precarious place in the world…<\/p>\n

Book Three<\/em> examines a strange case of maternal transference as a baby Stegoceras<\/em> loses one mother and believes a roosting Quetzalcoatalus might be a likely substitute, whilst Book Four<\/em> reviews \u2018A Busy Day in the life of a Plotosaurus\u2019 <\/em>with the colossal sea lizard coming in-shore to scavenge from Aublysodon<\/em>s before making the kill of a lifetime in deep water after boldly attacking a much larger Thallassomedon Plesiosaur<\/em>…<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a time of snow and deadly cold in Book Five<\/em> as an aging Albertosaurus takes a bad wound from the Styracosaur<\/em> he\u2019d planned on eating. As the world slowly turns white, hunter finds himself regarded as prey…<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a shift in focus and look at the true top killers in Book Six<\/em> as a herd of feeding Corythosaurs<\/em> idly watch a dragonfly pass. The insect – the epoch\u2019s most efficient hunter – then makes a mistake for the ages when it lands on the wrong tree at the right moment…<\/p>\n

Lawson is at his dramatic best depicting a night hunt in \u2018A Paleo Short Story\u2019<\/em>: a stark, wordless, dramatically chiaroscuric duel to the death in the dark…<\/p>\n

Book Seven<\/em> offers layers of passionate empathy as a Tyrannosaurus Rex<\/em> battles a host of lesser beasts taking advantage of her seeming defeat by an unconquerable enemy – viscous mud flats – before Book Eight<\/em> lingers lovingly on the lives of the era\u2019s biggest beasts after a brace of Alamosaurs<\/em> provide smaller herbivores such as Lambeosaurs<\/em> & Edmontosaurs<\/em> safe, sheltering, mobile feeding environments. But what happens when one disappears and the other is no longer passive?<\/p>\n

The lengthy new material begins with \u2018Easy\u2019<\/em> (story by Bissette, art Lawson & lettered by Thomas Mauer) as a healthy young male meat eater succumbs to pressures of the breeding impulse, heedless of the deadly consequences. The same creative team craft \u2018Floater\u2019<\/em> with a baffled tyrannosaur unable to tear himself away from a tantalising carcass in the river. She\u2019s long dead. She should just be food, but why is her belly still heaving and moving?<\/p>\n

This catalogue of carnosaur carnage and herbivore history closes with all-Lawson affair \u2018Loner\u2019<\/em> – as an adolescent Tyrannosaur is driven away by his mother and sisters and learns the cost of being alone. Why then would such a solitary survivor after years alone adopt another rejected young male at the risk of his life?<\/p>\n

This book superbly opens a window onto distant eons of saurian dominance and provides a profound panorama that focuses on a number of everyday experiences which simply have to be exactly how it was, way back then…
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\nAs in all these tales, astoundingly rendered and realised scenery and environment are as much characters in the drama as any meat and muscle protagonists, and all other opportunistic scavengers and hangers-on that prowl the peripheries of the war, ever eager to take momentary advantage of every opportunity in a simple battle for survival…<\/p>\n

Lawson\u2019s love for his subject, sublime feel for spectacle and an unmatchable gift for pace, coupled to a deft hand which imbues the vast range and cast with instantly recognisable individual looks and characters, always means the reader knows exactly who is doing what.This is book no lover of lizards and comics fan should miss.
\n\u00a9 2003, 2016 Jim Lawson. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

Today in 1932 prolific Tony DeZu\u00f1iga<\/strong> was born. Just scroll and wonder…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jim Lawson, with Stephen R. Bissette, Peter Laird & various (Dover Comics & Graphic Novels) ISBN: 978-0-486-80356-2 (TPB\/Digital edition) It\u2019s a rare hominid who hates dinosaurs. Sure, an occasional chimpanzee might prefer a nice kitten or peanut, but most of us soft, hairy two-leggers can\u2019t get enough of our antediluvian predecessors. Apart from the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Paleo: the Complete Collection”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[191,290,239,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-dinosaurs","category-drama","category-historical"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8TL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34209"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34216,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34209\/revisions\/34216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}