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Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards

jim ottaviani big time attic shadi petosky zander cannon

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The Wild West provided the setting for some famous battles, but the gunfight at O.K. Corral doesn't hold a candle to the Bone Wars. Following the Civil War, the (Re-)United States turned its attention to the unexplored territories between the Mississippi and the Pacific. The railroads led the way, and to build them we blasted through mountains and leveled valleys and exposed rock that hadn't seen the light of day for millions of years.This is the story of Edwin Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, two scientists who found and fought for those bones, and the artist Charles R. Knight who almost single-handedly brought dinosaurs back to life for an awestruck public. Guest starring Chief Red Cloud and hundreds of his Indian Braves, the gun-totin' and gamblin' Professor John Bell Hatcher, colossal and stupefying Dinosauria of the New World, and featuring special appearances by The Cardiff Giant, P.T. Barnum, Buffalo Bill Cody, Ulysses S. Grant, Alexander Graham Bell, and a plentiful supporting cast of Rogues and Gallants from the Eastern Scientific Establishment and The Old West, the colorful supporting cast makes for a rich blend of history, adventure, science, and art.

168 pages, Paperback

First published October 1,2005

This edition

Format
168 pages, Paperback
Published
October 1, 2005 by G.T. Labs
ISBN
9780966010664
ASIN
0966010663
Language
English

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About the author

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jim ottaviani

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I've worked at news agencies and golf courses in the Chicagoland area, nuclear reactors in the U.S. and Japan, and libraries in Michigan. When I'm not staying up late writing comics about scientists, I'm spraining my ankles and flattening my feet by running on trails. Or I'm reading. I read a lot.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 40 votes)
5 stars
15(38%)
4 stars
11(28%)
3 stars
14(35%)
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40 reviews All reviews
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Harrygillingham
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A compelling narrative, but I often found myself getting lost because a lot of the characters looked alike (I have this problem a lot with graphic novels, so it may not be the illustrators' fault). The story has a stranger than fiction quality and some of the panels evoked a really strong pathos - for instance, one when of the main characters dies with only his pet turtle looking on.
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Skeith_AR
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Ottaviani has good ideas and an interesting narrative sense, and his attempts to bring to popular notice via graphic novels some of the less well-known people in the recent history of science are certainly laudable, but his execution never seems to be up to his intentions. Here he recounts the history of the infamous “Bone Wars” of the late 19th century between rival American paleontologists Othniel Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, which greatly entertained and greatly annoyed their colleagues (and sold lots of papers for James Gordon Bennett). The competition was virulent, with vituperative personal attacks, “salting” of scientific digs, bribery of workers, spying, and violations of Indian lands. Marsh, the first American professor of paleontology (at Yale), could be brilliant, but also was capable of dynamiting sites to keep other researchers from exploring them. Cope, probably the better scientist of the two, was also brash, melodramatic, and a bit paranoid. Together, the two men gave American paleontology a bad reputation elsewhere in the world that took several generations to undo. Ottaviani’s story isn’t nearly that clear, however. The book would have benefitted from a dramatis personae at the front, to give the reader a sporting chance at following things.
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martysama0134
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Oh, this one's a lot of fun if you're a nerdy reader like me and enjoy Rick Geary-style historical adventure, true tales and prehistoric beasties.
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JustMayonnaise
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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It's been almost ten years between reads but as good as I remembered it. Really interesting tale of Marsh and Cope, two prominent late-19th-century fossil hunters and the scientific and popular feud between them. Also covers Charles Knight, the artist who developed early conceptions about what dinosaurs looked like. The paleontologists had the bones, but it took the right kind of artist to add the flesh and the life. Jim Ottaviani does his usual mountain of research here to put it all together. We learn a lot about the people, but it's also clear what is fact and what is speculation (or outright fiction) that serves the higher story. I'm still calling it non-fiction: most of the made-up stuff is either specifics of conversations no one wrote down, meetings that probably didn't happen but the effect is the same, or (my favorite) the choice to show Cope with a more minimal facial hair style he didn't actually have until later in life (to avoid confusion between his appearance and Marsh's full beard).

I also love the presentation in this one. Terrific sepia-toned art throughout that manages to capture the period and the people. Also NBD just some staggeringly ambitious re-creations of Knight's dinosaurs throughout.

First read November 2006, re-read September 2015.
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Ribbun
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Disclosure: I'm friends with the some of the authors. That said, it's an incredible book.
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