AGE OF REPTILES: ANCIENT EGYPTIANS No. 1, JUNE 2015 |
“Basically a western that stars a samurai… who happens to
be a forty-foot long predatory dinosaur” this publication by “Dark Horse
Comics” is innovative not only for featuring the heavily stylised storyboard artwork of
creator Ricardo Delgado. But for the fact that it doesn’t contain either a
single word or sound effect throughout its twenty-four page journey across
Cretaceous Africa.
Fortunately what it does encompass are some truly exquisitely
detailed drawings of the flora and fauna of a “bustling, thriving and
treacherous world” of giant reptiles and an action-packed captivating excursion alongside a “tough, lone
Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus”.
Indeed the sheer amount of things happening within the tiniest of the Costa
Rican artist’s panels is unbelievable, and can actually prove so overwhelming
that new elements to the textless story can be found even after the third or fourth
reading.
Admittedly bibliophiles wanting a bit more to their
narratives than just a succession of pictures may well be able to
argue that at its most basic level this magazine is simply about a huge ‘spined
lizard’ spending a day of its life eating fish and fending off threats. However
there is so very much more to Delgado’s storytelling, even down to the “Disney”
production designer’s ability to imbue the creatures he illustrates with
characters all of their own… even down to a pair of claw-snapping crustaceans
trying to catch a small insect whilst precariously balancing upon a branch floating down the
river.
Indeed considering the sheer number of different dinosaurs,
fish and birds which the writer incorporates into Issue One of “Age Of
Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians”, the attention to behavioural detail is
incredible. Not only does the scarred main protagonist act with a persuasively believable animal intellect, picking his prey carefully amidst waters teeming with fat-bodied giant
groupers and panic-stricken snapping-turtles. But so too do the creatures which
the sharp-toothed behemoth encounters. Whether they be a pair of velociraptors inadvertently
running into the Spinosaurus whilst tussling between themselves over a leg
shank, or a reckless meat-eating carnosaur wildly fleeing a herd of sauropods it had unwisely attacked earlier.
Story, Art and Dinosaur Color Concepts: Ricardo Delgado, and Colors: Ryan Hill |
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