4 out of 5

Man, this thing needed another issue.  But it doesn’t appear to have been planned for more – the first printing of issue 1 is clearly a 1 of 2… unless Mirage just wasn’t sure if it would sell… or maybe Jim really just didn’t have quite enough story for a third issue, but there are huge chunks of time jumped over that I would’ve taken some sweet Lawson art to fill up…

Regardless, Dino Island is such confirmation of Lawson’s amazing skill and creativity that it bums me out that we don’t see him around more often.  Perhaps he’ll get roped into working on the current Turtles book, but if not, I’ll be looking forward to when IDW gets to re-printing his run on the Turtles.  Jim’s art can be mistaken for clumsy, I think, but the more you look at it, the more you fall in love with it and recognize it as a style, just like any other notable artist.  He drops details where desired to get a really fluid feel to his motions, but he shares Peter Laird’s very hashy, detailed style for many elements on the page, so it’s this beautiful combination of depth and looseness.  …Mostly.  Some panels get the ol’ flat color background wash, but it works for the overall feel, and Jim’s creatively angled paneling and use of negative space around said paneling helps to balance this.

As to the story, it starts as normal sci-fi fare, but its initially paced so gracefully and large concepts presented with ease that – well, Jim had another book called Bade Biker that was super simple and silly, and D.I. is evidence of that being purposeful and not just limitations of the creator.  A pilot named Amelia (mmhm) loses direction in her plane around the Bermuda Triangle, then, after a flash of light, spots an island to set down on.  It seems deserted, but she spots some massive animal tracks which she follows to… dinosaurs.  And then she follows the dinosaurs to… humans, who wound up on the island in a similar fashion, and have spent some time determining that they don’t seem to be on our Earth anymore…

Not that you can run out and nab the book easily, but the story truly takes some impressive twists after this that I never expect… I’ve read the two issues several times with long break in-between, remembering the basic premise, but there’s always some details that catch me off guard that my brain let slip, and they’re again presented with such easy intelligence (Jim gets that you get it, so no need to over-explain beyond what’s needed) that it’s not really insulting the way the book just ends… it’s just disappointing.  A massive battle is summarized in two pages, huge story movements happen in a couple panels… and there could’ve been a short series after the “ending,” but that’s part of what’s nice about it, too.  It doesn’t get the chance to beat itself into the ground.  Just one more issue, though, man….