Age of Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians Review: Great Presentation

The popularity of dinosaurs has risen and lowered ever since the first fossil was discovered. Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” has also helped with the popularity. One of the more recent stories about dinosaurs is Ricardo Delgado’s “Age of Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians” and it’s an interesting read.

The plot is a little hard to describe since there is very little of it. The summary on the back says it’s a spinosaurus aegyptiacus going against other dinosaurs in a spaghetti western style narrative. What we get is really about dinosaurs acting like dinosaurs.

That sounds awfully boring on the surface, but once you dig deep it becomes apparent that this is a story about life. The spinosaurus is more of a spectator to what is going on in this world. We see dinosaurs eating other dinosaurs, dinosaurs fighting other dinosaurs and just dinosaurs being dinosaurs. Again, it’s boring on the surface but the way Delgado presents these events is what’s interesting. These aren’t just random events, each of them has a cause and effect to them. They are also shown in an actual narrative, which is impressive for a story like this.

One thing that may put off some people is that there is no text here. While some may consider that to be the author being lazy, it actually works. These are dinosaurs after all. It wouldn’t make any sense for dinosaurs to be talking unless it’s a comedy sitcom like “Dinosaurs.” Plus, Don Bluth seems to be the only person who has figured out how to make a world of talking dinosaurs awesome. Every other attempt just seems cheesy.

In order for a comic like this to work, the art must be something out of this world. Luckily, the art does that well. The dinosaurs look like what you’d expect despite some of them having colors that they may not have had (yellow, purple.) The action scenes are well presented and are thankfully gory. It’s impossible to show dinosaurs fighting without having a ton of blood. One of the best images is the spinosaurus swimming and we see all these fish. It’s like looking at a prehistoric aquarium.

“Age of Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians” is a well-drawn and well-presented comic about dinosaurs. Despite the barely there plot, this comic doesn’t need one as the events are interesting and are excellent to see. This is especially true if dinosaurs are your thing.