• Archives
  • Contact
  • Drawings
  • Meteor Mags
  • Music Albums
  • Paintings
  • PBN
  • Sea Monkeys
  • Secret Origin

Mars Will Send No More

~ Comic books, art, poetry, and other obsessions

Mars Will Send No More

Tag Archives: cretaceous

Learning to Love the Monster: Tadd Galusha’s Cretaceous

23 Wednesday Jun 2021

Posted by Mars Will Send No More in dinosaur

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

book review, cretaceous, dinosaur, dinosaur comics, indie box, Indie Comics, Oni Press, tadd galusha, tyrannosaurus rex

The Cretaceous graphic novel is the most recent addition to my collection of pure dinosaur comics, and it is non-stop awesome. Like Ricardo Delgado’s Age of Reptiles series, it is a wordless dino adventure, though Tadd Galusha does drop in the occasional text-based sound effect or growl. Cretaceous delivers a wildlife documentary from hell, with nearly every page being full of brutally violent dinosaur fights and dinos eating other dinos. This tale of carnage and mayhem is not a cute book for toddlers!

If you’re like me, you wish that Godzilla movies and comics would just get rid of all the stupid human parts and show more monster battles. Galusha—who worked on some Godzilla comics for IDW—must feel the same way, because Cretaceous is all killer and no filler. Early on, I wondered if the book even had a plot, or if it was just an endless stream of savagery, with different dinos weaving in and out of each other’s lives on the way to their doom.

Although that’s a fairly accurate statement about Cretaceous, a plot does emerge. The protagonist is an adult male Tyrannosaurus Rex, a fearsome monster who, in the first scene, attacks a herd of Parasaurolophus and slaughters one of them. He carries the fresh corpse back to his home, where the meat feeds his juveniles first and then his wife. The mother Rex waits patiently while the children feed, and this detail of her characterization takes us on the first step down the path of learning to love these murderous beasts. Yes, they are killers, but within their family unit is affection, devotion, and tenderness.

But not even these rulers of prehistory can escape the eat-and-be-eaten web of life, especially when smaller predators have developed the skill to hunt in packs and accomplish what a lone individual cannot. Tragedy befalls the Rex family, and the remainder of the book resembles an old-fashioned revenge tale. A classic Western, almost.

The daddy Rex hunts his enemies and searches for his surviving child. The perpetual horror he encounters earns him our sympathy, and his mastery of unarmed combat earns him our respect. Step-by-step, as we follow him through the forest primeval and other resplendent landscapes brought to life by Galusha’s pen and colors, we learn to love this monster.

The environment is so much a part of the action that it’s practically a character itself. Galusha doesn’t just draw pretty backgrounds. The earth, the trees, the fog, the ocean—they are all more than mere settings. They are both friends and foes to the dinosaurs, often at the same time. Plus, their visual splendor is a counterpoint to the sheer terror that drives Cretaceous. And is that any different from our real lives? We are fragile creatures, even the toughest of us, inhabiting a beautiful universe where life often feels like a relentless string of one ugly event after another.

Yet life goes on, and though we know exactly how all our stories will end, we persist. By boiling down the dinosaurs’ lives into their most primal aspects, Cretaceous seems to comment on our human lives. Galusha presents an unflinchingly brutal vision of life and death, a narrative of ceaseless struggle illuminated occasionally by the moments of hope, triumph, and even love that keep us going—despite knowing all too well the cards are stacked against us. We come to love the monstrous Rex, because the monster is us, and everything around us. His quest is ours.

Cretaceous blew my mind and earned a spot among my all-time favorite dinosaur comics, a pantheon which includes Ricardo Delgado’s Age of Reptiles, Steve Bissette’s Tyrant, and Jim Lawson’s Paleo and Loner.

You can find Cretaceous on Amazon in paperback or Kindle/Comixology ebook formats.

black-and-white art from Illustration Age’s Tadd Galusha page.

Mars Will Search No More!

Mars Will Stat No More!

  • 6,593,275 minds warped since 2011
Follow Mars Will Send No More on WordPress.com

Mars Will Advertise No More!

My Comic Shop banner

Mars Will Categorize No More!

  • art studio (98)
  • crime (42)
  • dinosaur (222)
  • educational (139)
  • first issue (110)
  • golden age (133)
  • humor (28)
  • indie (187)
  • jungle (57)
  • MeteorMags (18)
  • music (43)
  • occult (80)
  • pirates (17)
  • poetry (64)
  • postcards (44)
  • quarterly report (35)
  • science fiction (407)
  • superhero (435)
  • war (45)
  • western (10)
  • writing (22)

Mars Will Tag No More!

2000AD abstract acrylic advertising Alan Moore Alex Nino alien Al Williamson Amazing Spider-man animal inside you animals art Avengers Batman big box of comics Bill Mantlo birth black and white Black Panther book review books brains Brave and the Bold Captain America Carmine Infantino cats Charles Yates Chris Claremont Classics Illustrated collage collection comic book collage comic books crime Dark Horse Comics DC Comics dinosaur dinosaur books dinosaur comics Dinosaurs an Illustrated Guide Dr. Doom drawing Dreadstar dreams EC Comics EC Comics reprints Fantagraphics Fantastic Four first issue Flesh Flesh the Dino Files Galactus George Perez Gilberton Gil Kane Godzilla golden age guitar Harvey Comics Image Comics indie box Indie Comics Inhumans Jack Kirby Jack Kirby art Jim Lee Jim Starlin Joe Simon John Buscema John Byrne jungle Ka-zar Kevin O'Neill Last Gasp library of female pirates Life on Other Worlds lizard Man-Thing Mark Millar Marvel Comics Marvelman memoir meteor mags Micronauts MiracleMan monsters music nature occult OMAC origin painting pastel Patches Pat Mills pen and ink pirates Planet Comics planets poems poetry postcards prehistoric mammals Prehistoric World Prize quarterly report Race for the Moon racism Ray Bradbury Robert Kanigher robot Roy Thomas Satans Tears Savage Land science fiction self publishing Silver Surfer sketchbook sundays Smilodon Spider-man Stan Lee Steve Bissette Steve Ditko Steve Rude Strange Sports Strange Tales Superman Swamp Thing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Teen Titans Thor time travel Triceratops Turok Turok Son of Stone tyrannosaurus rex underground comix Vertigo Comics war war comics Warren Ellis Warrior Weird Fantasy Weird War Tales Wolverine writing X-men X-men covers Young Earth Zabu

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Mars Will Send No More
    • Join 799 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Mars Will Send No More
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...