Research consultant: Shin-ichi Fujiwara
Translated by John Neal
194 pages
Published 2021 (English translation published 2022)
Read January 3
Rating: 4 out of 5
One thing that baffles me is how few good dinosaur stories there are. There are some short stories from the likes of Michael Swanwick and Jennifer Lee Rossman; there's the first Jurassic Park (both book and movie); there are a smattering of good episodes of Camp Cretaceous; there's Dinosaur Summer. And that's basically it.
You'd think writing or filming (or, in this case, storyboarding and drawing) a solid work of dinosaur fiction would be a cinch. You get your dinos, you throw some human characters into the mix, and you're good to go. It really doesn't need to be more complicated than that. Yet time after time and author after author, dino stories get mucked up and bogged down with extraneous garbage: It's the army vs. the dinosaurs! Dinosaurs are getting genetically modified into an army! Aliens killed off the dinosaurs! Raptors were actually shapeshifting parasites who could extract DNA from their victims and evolve into human doppelgangers! Simple tales of human drama that happen to feature dinosaurs? Almost vanishingly rare.
Dinosaur Sanctuary is a newish manga series that hits that oft-neglected sweet spot. We follow a small team of caretakers who work with the dinosaurs of a sanctuary that's precariously clinging to business as dinos become passé. Each chapter explores a slice of life in the dinosaur park as the characters encounter a problem with the dinos' health and upkeep, or when the park's financial position threatens to collapse. It never gets deeper or more off-the-wall than that, and it never needs to. The illustrations are lovely, the dinosaurs feel real, and the characters (while not that deep) are engaging. It's a bit like what Jurassic World should have been, with a touch of Dinosaur Summer to keep things fresh. It's sweet and charming and it works beautifully.
Why aren't more dinosaur books like this?
I can't wait for Volume 2 to drop in March.
No comments:
Post a Comment