We would like to sincerely thank referee Jeff Liston for his valuable suggestions and positive comments, which we found very useful to improve our manuscript.

We already incorporated all technical corrections in the revised version of our manuscript:

line 72: 'where primary' replace with 'were primarily';

Corrected.

line 78: probably more correct to use the plural with the possessive, hence 'kid's stuff' or 'kids' stuff';

Corrected.

line 85: at end of sentence, suggest addition - 'in children's books, a market where it is rarely seen by publishers as necessary to be up-to-date.' If necessary, I think Darren Naish has written about this particular aspect, particularly as a writer.

Amended.

line 87: 'on the latest'

Corrected.

line 88: singular so 'medium' in this case;

Corrected.

line 107: consider 'preexisting' over 'existing';

Corrected.

line 120: 'generations for how';

Corrected.

line 142: 'lifeforms' plural is (bizarrely) one word rather than two;

Corrected.

line 176: replace 'were' for 'where';

Corrected.

line 207: I would argue for insertion of heroes as well as villains (if possibly '(or heroes)' in parenthesis);

Corrected.

line 214: 'to explain the presence of the prehistoric creatures';

Corrected.

line 222: remove duplicated citation of Merkl, 2015 on this line;

Corrected.

line 332: replace 'Classic' with 'Classics'?;

Corrected.

line 356: I think either remove the comma before 'resemble' or insert another one before 'depicting';

Corrected.

lines 402-408 & 410-417 are essentially duplicated paragraphs - recommend condensing into one;

Corrected.

line 577: I'd say 'were' rather than 'was' here;

Corrected.

line 643: remove 'are' from between nine and originated;

Corrected.

line 688: consider switching to 'Neither dialogue can';

Corrected.

Overall I must applaud the authors for the scope that they have embraced in putting this piece together, and the necessary time that they have invested in 'doing it properly', in particular with regard to approaching all rights holders (which was complicated enough for myself with a far more limited range, than approaching the many corporations that the authors have). This has enabled an excellent 'art history lecture' style approach, with side by side images for direct comparison to clearly demonstrate dirrect influence. In particular - in addition to touching many titles that I have previously considered with reference to dinosaurs in comics - the authors have reminded me of a Gold Key Tarzan comic that I acquired around the same time as I was reading Jane Werner Watson, with dinosaurs on the cover, which I should really check...

Thanks to the authors for putting this piece together and to the editor for considering me as a reviewer.

Thank you for all this praise! We are very glad that you enjoyed our manuscript so much! :-)

The authors

We would like to sincerely thank referee Victoria Coules for her valuable suggestions and improvements as well as her positive comments, which we found really useful to further improve our manuscript.

All authors do indeed speak German as their native tongue and despite decades of practice, some language quirks still slip in. So, all language corrections are very much appreciated!

We incorporated almost all technical corrections in a revised version of our manuscript and commented on the one which we left unchanged:

46          ‘… dinosaur research, which often reaches..’ (research is singular)

Corrected.

63          possibly reword ‘goal to encourage other scientists..’ to goal of encouraging other scientists..’

Corrected.

102        don’t need the comma after ..‘public awareness’ as the link is carried by ‘because…

Corrected.

146        possibly reword ‘..he was offered to add..’ with ‘.. he was commissioned to add..’ or ‘offered          the commission of adding..’

We decided to leave this wording unchanged because in the book “Age of Reptiles“ by Rosemary Vople from 2007 Rudolph Zallinger himself described (on page 7) this job simply as "an offer“ in the chapter about the creation of the mural.

147        I’m not sure if ‘model’ is the right word here, do you mean an initial schematic, preliminary version or test piece? Model tends to imply a three-dimensional object like a maquette.

Zallinger wrote (page 12 in Vople, 2007) “preliminary small-scale painting, or model, …“ and we decided to use exactly the same phase now to avoid confusion.

188        do you mean ‘Like most other comics, strips involving..’?

Corrected.

191        being really picky (!) I’d prefer the use of a ‘;’ rather than a ‘:’

Corrected.

207        possible reword ‘… necessary to advance the story..’

Corrected.

265        possible reword to avoid repeat of ‘too’. .. of Stone also chose a lost world setting.’

Corrected.

304        Not sure, so a question: should ‘ice age’ be ‘Ice Age’ ?

Yes, it is about the last glacial period. Corrected.

337        being annoyingly picky again, the ‘;’ should be a ‘,’

Corrected.

Like the previous reviewer, I noticed that lines 413 to 417 are a duplicate of lines 404 to 408. I agree that merging the two paragraphs into one should solve this.

Corrected.

505        possibly reword ‘.. interest for more information..’ could be ‘.. interest in more information..’

Corrected.

550        possible reword ‘suitable to teaching’ could be ‘suitable for teaching’

Corrected.

593        perhaps ‘interestingness’ could be ‘interest’?

Corrected.

657        being picky, the clause following the ‘:’ doesn’t need a ‘G’ it can be ‘.. as follows: graphic..’

Corrected.

The analysis of the images works well, and if I have a criticism it’s that the references to other art influences could have been expanded, such as referencing Caspar David Friederich and the Hudson River School, although this is more being intrigued and wanting to know more rather than a negative criticism.

Thank you for this valuable suggestion! We extended the part about art influences and have now included three more figures, which show the classic originals which served as inspiration together with the corresponding pages in the graphic novel. In our opinion, these figures do indeed further improve our manuscript.

I was very pleased to be asked to review this and commend the authors on a professional, comprehensive and intriguing paper. I look forward to seeing it in its final published form.

Thanks again for this helpful and review!

Please note, that while working on the suggested corrections, we decided to partially rewrite and slightly expand section 2.4 (survey results) to reference all diagrams in this figure directly. We also added a few more diagrams in order to provide additional information. In the latest version of our manuscript, this figure is now also included in the main article and no longer suggested as a supplement.

During our revision we also corrected some other minor issues with references and amended the manuscript in very few places.

The authors