Welcome back to Sundays at Guapo with JOHN ISAACSON, LAZY CARTOONIST. So today on the Guapo comixblog we feature three distinct nature comics, each from a different geologic era. The first is THE AGE OF REPTILES published by Dark Horse. Age of Reptiles is silent and shows dinosaur social behavior in herds, which was something I never learned about during my childhood dinosaur-obsession phase. You can watch in awe as herds of hadrosaurus, diplodocus, anklyosaurus, and velociraptors move through barren plains in search of water, only to find a small puddle filled with crocodiles! You can see cute baby triceratops riding on its mama’s horn, and helpful pterodactyls also catching a ride on anklyosaurus’s shell. It’s horrifying and gory but also very real when a pack of raptors skeletonize a brontosaurus like a school of piranhas! Richard Delgado uses a clean consistent line throughout this book to illustrate the massive scenery and hundreds of dinosaurs. Detailed textures of dinosaur skin and desert terrain make the book lush and life-like. He also includes a short essay at the end about Ray Harryhausen’s mentor, Willis O’Brien, special effects maestro behind King Kong. Needless to say Delgado is a fan of monsters! If you’ve ever been curious about a day in the life of dinosaurs, then Age of Reptiles is the book for you! This second issue is about 20 pages of full-color reptile reverie!
Next up is WATER COLUMN #2 by zoologist / cartoonist Josh Frankel. Josh has blown my mind with his previous comics about the extra-terrestrial-like species that inhabited the earth during the Cambrian period. Josh bases many of his comics in that mysterious primordial soup that is the foundation of all life on this planet: The Ocean. In Water Column we see a creature that rarely shows up in Josh’s a work: a puny human! As a basking shark dives into the deep abyss, the human and hangers-on such as the sucker-fish are left in shallower depths. Here we see the fascinating feeding and mating cycles of the basking shark. Who doesn’t love a little deep-sea sex? Josh uses dynamic, exciting compositions set off against stark half-toned background to elevate the drama. At the end there are a few notes on the cast of creatures in Water Column, including Pilot Fish, Remora, and our star, The Basking Shark. Also a silent comic, Water Column #2 is a suitable gift for any fan of National Geographic or the Discovery Channel.
Unlike Age of Reptiles and Water Column, XOC #1 by Matt Dembicki features TALKING ANIMALS, but there is no further anthropomorphism, as the seals discuss when and where to go catch fish. There’s even a little narration as the seal nears it’s prey when SHARK ATTACK! Matt has some great page-layout skills using bleeds, layered panels, and beautiful silhouetted scenes looking underwater up at the shark slaughtering seals. I love the references to the shark’s directional system which response to “changes in the earth’s magnetic pull” and the “direction of the sun”. In the introduction, Matt mentions that his work draw heavily from scientific resources and personal observations, such as National Geographic, Discovery, Smithsonian, BBC, the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, and many others. Matt has great brush skills and puts them to use illustrating the churning sea, island rock textures, seal skin, shipwrecks, octopi, eels, and many other denizens of the deep. This black-and-white mini is digest-sized (8.5 x 5.5) with a color cover, gray-scale inside, and has bleeds all around. It’s well worth the two dollars!
Josh’s website is www.hungryforbrains.com
Matt’s comics are on www.comixpress.com