Europasaurus: Life on Jurassic Islands by Olivier Wings & Joschua Knüppe
Might contain spoilers.
The illustrations are lovely; the sunsets gorgeous. This graphic novel presents an interesting if morbid look at the period and an atypical cast of dinosaurs. Some moments are a touch puerile because of how they’re emphasized: two separate instances of crocodiles mating, a closeup of the Europasaurus relieving itself.
I think this is because the novel is caught between documentary and fiction. It lacks the rigour of a documentary, but it also lacks the storytelling of something like Raptor Red. Still, I feel so sorry for the lone juvenile that survives the death of its entire herd.
The typesetting is sub-par, as is the design of the text in general. The lack of hyphenation in large blocks of text is inexplicable. The English is also stilted. These aren’t hindrances, of course, but jarring details.
I initially thought the diagram at the beginning demonstrating the scale must be incorrect since the humans looked too big and the dinosaurs too small. However, a section at the end explains that the dinosaurs are very small because of living on an island, complete with a photo of a Europasaurus skeleton next to a Giraffatitan skeleton to show how small it is in comparison.