Trouble comes in the form of the beautiful Hannah Dundee, an ambassador from the neighboring city-state of Wassoon. Not much is known about the cataclysm that changed the world other than it was brought about by humanity’s mistreatment of the environment, and Tenric’s job is to make sure his “tribe” doesn’t repeat those past mistakes. Tenric uses his skills to rebuild 20 th century machinery – particularly Cadillacs – and to protect the surrounding wildlife from the predations of human poachers. (EC Comics is often cited as his source of inspiration.) Set on the transmogrified east coast of North America, the story centers around Jack “Cadillac” Tenric, who is an odd cross between an auto mechanic and a forest ranger. The series owes a lot to the adventure comics of the 1940s and 1950s, and in early issues Schultz is clearly trying to imitate their art style. Even half-finished, Xenozoic Tales remains the best dinosaur comic ever published, and in my view, one of the best adventure comics ever to appear.

Mark Schultz published 14 issues of the comic before he stopped, mid-story, in 1996.

Xenozoic Tales is better known by its nickname, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, and there are plenty of both throughout its pages. A new geologic era has begun – the Xenozoic Age. When they emerge 500 years later, instead of finding a wasteland, they find a lush ecosystem where every species that has ever walked the planet has been resurrected, from trilobites to mammoths. A few groups of humans, scattered here and there, retreat to underground bunkers in a desperate attempt to survive. Things get so bad that by 2020 the planet is no longer habitable and most of the human race is extinguished, along with the rest of life. First published in 1986, it postulated that by the then-future year of 1996, a cataclysmic series of geologic upheavals would begin to change the surface of the earth. That, at least, is the history of the world according to the comic book series Xenozoic Tales. I have bad news: The world ended in the 1990s. Tags Alternate history Animal protagonists Cryptozoology Dinosaurs Evolution Fantasy Films Genetic engineering Horror Hunting Literary Criticism Lost world Mammals Mysteries Paleontology Sea Monsters Series Space travel Suspended animation Time travel Western Young adult Think of the site more as an archive of news and reviews than a traditional blog. This blog updates infrequently simply because of the scarcity of the subject matter - long stretches of time pass between novels featuring prehistoric animals. There are no reviews for movies or television shows, but I do include news items about upcoming films. Prehistoric Pulp is a blog dedicated to fiction about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, with reviews, cover blurbs and news about upcoming works.Īlso covered here, although less comprehensively, are comics and board/roleplaying games featuring prehistoric critters.

Xenozoic Tales #11 by Mark Schultz