Age of Reptiles
The "Age of Reptiles" is a comic book series created by Ricardo Delgado that explores a fictionalized prehistoric landscape through the lens of survival, competition, and migration among dinosaurs. Released by Dark Horse Comics in the mid-1990s during a surge of public interest in dinosaurs, the series comprises three main collections: "Tribal Warfare," "The Hunt," and "The Journey." Each collection presents unique narratives centered on various dinosaur species, depicting their struggles for survival in a harsh environment.
In "Tribal Warfare," a family of tyrannosaurs faces off against a pack of deinonychus, showcasing themes of family loyalty and vengeance. "The Hunt" follows an allosaur's quest for survival after witnessing his mother’s death at the hands of ceratosaurs, while also highlighting natural disasters as threats. The final collection, "The Journey," portrays mass migration among dinosaurs seeking out new habitats amidst evolving challenges, effectively commenting on broader themes of displacement and resource competition that resonate with contemporary issues.
Delgado's storytelling is distinctive for its wordless format, relying on rich illustrations to convey emotion and action, which invites readers to engage with the narrative on a personal level. The artistic style emphasizes the dinosaurs' human-like characteristics, allowing for a connection that extends the themes of survival and unity across species. Overall, "Age of Reptiles" is notable for its innovative approach to dinosaur narratives, contributing to the comic genre while reflecting on timeless themes relevant to human experiences.
Age of Reptiles
AUTHOR: Delgado, Ricardo
ARTIST: Ricardo Delgado (illustrator); Jim Campbell (colorist); James Sinclair (colorist)
PUBLISHER: Dark Horse Comics
FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1993-2010
FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1996
Publication History
Dinosaurs rose significantly in popularity in the early 1990’s, with James Gurney’s illustrated book series Dinotopia and the 1993 premiere of the highly successful film Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the novel by Michael Crichton. In 1993, in the midst of this feverish public interest in dinosaurs, Dark Horse Comics released the first issue in the series Age of Reptiles by Ricardo Delgado, later noted for his storyboarding of films like Species (1995), Strange Days (1995), Apollo 13 (1995), the Matrix series (1999 and 2003), Elektra (2005), and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009). His animation credits include work as the development artist for WALL-E (2008) and in visual development for The Incredibles (2004). Delgado traces his fascination with dinosaurs to such inspirations as the original King Kong (1933), the dinosaur exhibits at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, and artist Charles R. Knight’s paintings of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.
The success of the first four issues of the Age of Reptiles resulted in the publication of a trade paperback, subtitled Tribal Warfare, in 1996. This was followed by a second collection of five issues, The Hunt, published as a trade paperback in 1997. A third collection, The Journey, was published in four issues in 2009-2010, but not released as a trade paperback. The Age of Reptiles Omnibus, which includes all three collections plus bonus material, was published in 2011.
Plot
Each collection features a different plot, but all generally revolve around the basic need of survival, which Delgado portrays via the wordless interactions of various anthropomorphized dinosaurs. Tribal Warfare tells the story of an ongoing battle between a family of tyrannosaurs and a gang of deinonychus, which are a type of raptor. After the deinonychus kill a sauropod called Ring Neck, a tyrannosaur called Blue Back frightens them off and takes the kill for himself. Snake Eye, a deinonychus, decides to assault Blue Back, but is not quick enough to escape his clenching jaws and is killed. The other deinonychus quickly flee, though two of the gang, Dark Eye and Leopard, discover where Blue Back is camped. After he and two infant tyrannosaurs fall asleep, Dark Eye and Leopard sneak inside, steal their eggs, and manage to escape Blue Back after he awakens. Blue Back plans his revenge on the deinonychus and waits until the gang is away hunting before he attacks the others in the tribe. When the gang returns home, they discover many of their tribe being ripped apart by Blue Back. Dark Eye manages to escape his wrath and later traps and kills a young tyrannosaur named Short Tail. Long Jaw, the father, is too late to save Short Tail and roars with grief and anger. In a final battle between the deinonychus and the tyrannosaurs, the side of the cliff they are fighting on shears off from the mountain during a storm, and all the dinosaurs except Long Jaw fall to their deaths. When Long Jaw returns to his cave, he is surprised to find a mammal called Proto eating the tribe’s eggs.
In The Hunt, a young allosaur named Santo watches as ceratosaurs Big Nose, Two Nose, and Broken Nose kill his mother. After Santo escapes and grows into an adult, he is pursued by the same gang of ceratosaurs. Santo and the ceratosaurs survive an earthquake that flushes them into a lush land of water and vegetation. Subsequent subplots focus on battles among other dinosaurs, including a trio of flying dsungaripterus (pterosaurs) that chase a single criorhynchus (another type of pterosaur) through thick layers of clouds. In addition, natural disasters like violent thunderstorms and lightning, earthquakes, and tsunamis are as much of a threat to Santo’s survival as the other dinosaurs. Santo survives a final battle with the ceratosaurs, but discovers another family of ceratosaurs hiding in the caves, posing a threat to his future safety.
In the third collection, The Journey, the encroachment of evolving birds and mammals on local resources leads to a mass exodus of land-bound dinosaurs, as they travel in search of a new home with adequate water and vegetation. This collection chronicles the struggle of a wide variety of dinosaurs to keep themselves alive in the most inhospitable conditions, while tyrannosaurs and other carnivores feed off the weak and dying. As the herds travel through an arid region, a pack of deinonychus, numbering in the hundreds, takes down and feasts on the massive body of a brontosaurus. After they reach fertile land, the migrating herds are crossing a deep river when they are attacked by hundreds of crocodiles, which kill many of the dinosaurs before they can make it to shore. A mother and her two young tyrannosaurs continue to follow the survivors and feed off any stragglers. The migration moves through the jungle and along a coastline, and when the young tyrannosaurs chase their prey too close to the water, a marine-dwelling plesiosaur attacks. The mother jumps into the water and engages in a lengthy and ferocious battle before she overpowers the plesiosaur, which escapes and swims out to sea. After many trials, the migrating dinosaurs finally discover a hospitable environment with food and water for the survivors. Apart from the lengthy battle between the plesiosaur and the tyrannosaurs, The Journey features no distinct characters; rather, the entire population of dinosaurs is the primary character at risk of extinction.
Volumes
•Age of Reptiles: Tribal Warfare (1996). Collects issues 1-4. Set in the Cretaceous period, this collection centers on a deadly battle between a family of tyrannosaurs and a tribe of deinonychus.
•Age of Reptiles: The Hunt (1997). Collects issues 1-5. In the Jurassic period, a lone allosaur flees from a pack of pursuing ceratosaurs before turning the tables and becoming the hunter.
•Age of Reptiles: The Journey (2009-2010). Collects issues 1-4. In the Cretaceous period, herds of dinosaurs migrate south to reach a more hospitable environment.
•Age of Reptiles Omnibus (2011). Collects all issues.
Characters
•Blue Back and Long Jaw, from Age of Reptiles: Tribal Warfare, are tyrannosaurs who try to protect their young and guard their eggs from the malicious deinonychus.
•Snake Eye, Leopard, Dark Eye, Sina, Maya, One Claw, Quetzal, and Three Tooth, from Age of Reptiles: Tribal Warfare, are a family of deinonychus who battle Blue Back and Long Jaw.
•Proto, from Age of Reptiles: Tribal Warfare, is a mammal, similar in appearance to a tarsier, who feasts on the last of the tyrannosaurs’ eggs.
•Santo, from Age of Reptiles: The Hunt, is an allosaur who plans revenge on the ceratosaurs who killed his mother.
•Chula, from Age of Reptiles: The Hunt, is Santo’s mother, who, despite her size, is overpowered and killed by a gang of ceratosaurs.
•Big Nose, Broken Nose, Two Nose, and One Claw, from Age of Reptiles: The Hunt, are the ceratosaurs who pursue Santo after killing his mother.
•Oscura, from Age of Reptiles: The Hunt, is Big Nose’s mate, who guards her family of young ceratosaurs after Santo kills the last of the adults.
•A mother tyrannosaur, from Age of Reptiles: The Journey, engages in a fierce battle with a plesiosaur to protect her young.
•A plesiosaur, from Age of Reptiles: The Journey, attacks a pair of young tyrannosaurs near the edge of the water.
Artistic Style
Delgado is recognized for his extensive work in films, such as cinematic storyboarding, and this background is evident in the cinematic flow of action displayed in the series. He skillfully uses an assortment of panel sizes, including many long shots and panoramic two-page spreads, to present a prehistoric landscape, while close-ups and thumbnail panels within panels show simultaneous reactions of characters during unfolding events. For example, in a page-wide center panel in Tribal Warfare, two deinonychus sneak into the tyrannosaurs’ cave while they are asleep and steal their eggs. Within this panel, Delgado places two vertical thumbnails. The top thumbnail is a close-up of a sleeping tyrannosaur that, in the lower thumbnail, awakens suddenly with a roar after hearing the intruders.
One challenge for Delgado is to provide the dinosaurs with distinct visual features in order to distinguish them from one another. He achieves this by using color markings, such as the blue stripes on the tyrannosaur named Blue Back. This individuality seems less important in The Journey, where the focus is on dinosaurs as a whole; accordingly, Delgado fills the majority of panels with numerous species of dinosaurs, moving the focus from the distinct to the general.
Delgado does not use any word balloons or narration and relies on facial expressions to display emotion; for example, he uses wide eyes to indicate surprise during an attack. Sound, from a roar of aggression to a cry for help, is indicated by thin, radiating red lines. Delgado uses simple directional lines to indicate motion, like a quick turn to catch prey, and a squiggle of his pen to imply frustration when the prey escapes the dinosaur’s grasp.
Delgado’s artwork depicts the dinosaurs with fine detail and in a wide range of colors. The majority of the panel backgrounds are presented in flat colors, and are sometimes completely white, which concentrates the reader’s focus on the dinosaurs and the unfolding action. The panel borders are usually white, except in scenes that Delgado wishes to accentuate, such as the bloody intertribal battle of the raptors, where the borders are red instead. The use of color both in the cover art and on the page, especially in the many one- and two-page spreads, is the visual enticement to the majestic drama that unfolds in each collection.
Themes
Survival is the main theme in this series and is addressed from the perspectives of the individual dinosaur, the family or tribe, and ultimately the entirety of the population. Since the dinosaurs are given human characteristics, it is easy to extend this theme and others to the human world. Another theme, of unity and safety, is expressed clearly in the first two collections, in which the isolated individual is more at risk than one who is closely tied to a family or group. However, the violence among the dinosaurs, even within groups of the same species, prompts a question: If peaceful coexistence is impossible in the dinosaur world, should the reader assume the same of the human world?
In the last collection, The Journey, the motif of mass migration can readily be seen as applicable to the human world, in which one can see daily news reports about the growing displacement of refugees from war-torn countries. Developing this theme further, the example of the clash between the plesiosaur and the intruding tyrannosaur provides an analogy for the growing conflict between the population of a host country and unwelcome immigrants, especially during times of economic hardship. Delgado seems to ask, as environmental resources diminish, what impact will a growing population have on the human species as a whole? Will humans, like the various species of dinosaurs, find themselves part of a mass migration of different races and cultures, seeking and fighting over the dwindling resources left on Earth? When those resources vanish, will humans face extinction like the dinosaurs or rise above natural law and work together to sustain the species? Delgado offers hope: At the end of The Journey, the surviving dinosaurs reach a hospitable environment.
The Age of Reptiles series offers a distinct version of the prehistoric world without any words of explanation or narration, allowing readers the opportunity to visually interpret each savage battle and personally imagine the sound of crashing thunder in a jungle storm or the loud roars of a ravenous dinosaur as it rips apart its prey. Delgado’s decision to provide dinosaurs with human emotions connects the reader with the dinosaurs.
Delgado tackles themes such as the survival of a population in a world of environmental concerns, global warming, and shrinking resources. Despite these strong themes, there is a limit to the number of times interest can be prolonged with dinosaur battles and the predictable deadly results. The use of extended subplots and of several one- and two-page spreads in The Hunt breaks up the predictability; however, without a clear connection to the main plot, they serve as little more than intermissions. In addition, the last collection lacks an identifiable hero. While this retreat from character serves to foreground the common plight of dinosaurs as a whole, it also results in the loss of a strong personal connection, which is an essential element in the success of any series. A good example of this important personal connection with a character can be seen in Gon (1992-2002), a wordless comic series about dinosaurs by the Japanese artist Masashi Tanaka, the success of which rests entirely on the character development of the tiny tyrannosaur named Gon. Despite these limitations, however, the Age of Reptiles is a valuable resource not only in the wordless genre but also as an example of the recurrent and popular association of dinosaurs and comics.
Impact
Dinosaurs played an important role in early adventure comics, such as Turok, Son of Stone (1956-1982) and The War That Time Forgot (1960-1968). However, these classic comics always depicted humans mysteriously entering the world of dinosaurs. Delgado’s comic series explores the world of the dinosaur only, without human interference, and displays the unfolding life-and-death situations from a fictionalized prehistoric world.
Further Reading
DuBois, Gaylord, et al. Turok, Son of Stone (1956-1982).
Schultz, Mark. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (1989).
Tanaka, Masashi. Gon (1992-2002).
Bibliography
Delgado, Ricardo. Afterword to Age of Reptiles: Tribal Warfare. Milwaukie, Ore.: Dark Horse Comics, 1996.
Manning, Shaun. “Ricardo Delgado on Age of Reptiles: The Journey.” Comic Book Resources, September 18, 2009. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=22978.