Kevin Cannon

Jim Ottaviani and Big Time Attic’s Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology focuses on the two titular paleontologists, their rivalry, and the ethically-dubious practices of government-funded scientists in the late nineteenth century. They portray Cope as ambitious, but put-upon and Marsh as something of a huckster among his fellow academics; an interesting choice as Marsh frequently encountered P.T. Barnum, as Ottaviani and Big Time Attic depict. The artist Charles R. Knight, who was the artist of choice for depicting Dinosaurs and their reptilian contemporaries, serves as something of a middle ground for the two extremes of Cope and Marsh, while allowing the authors to introduce other people who played a role in early paleontology.

Like Jonathan Fetter-Vorm’s Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb or his Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War, Ottaviani and Big Time Attic’s book offers a good introduction to the subject of science in the Gilded Age for both high school and introductory college readers as well as general science enthusiasts. Though the book fictionalizes some events for dramatic effect, Ottaviani and Big Time Attic helpfully include a “Fact or Fiction?” section where they offer additional details about the facts and discuss where they fictionalized events as well as how those literary licenses were based on actual events. The book closes with a list of further reading for those interested in learning more about the subjects discussed. Educators, students, and casual readers will gain a greater insight into the world of the Gilded Age through the events Ottaviani and Big Time Attic portray and from how they recreate the language of the time, both in direct quotes and through the font choices for speech balloons.… (plus d'informations)