We All Have Rawwrs Together
Friday February 20, 2026 • Howard Tayler

I’m working on the bonus story, “Refulgence of Refuge,” and the final panel has to do quite a bit of heavy lifting. If you’re familiar with book 19 then you know (spoiler alert) that a civilization of feathered raptor-oids among Earth’s dinosaurs was rescued by an advanced civilization. “Refulgence of Refuge” gives us the details of this rescue, and because of the title, which literally means “shininess of the safe place,” I need to make the some panels, especially the last one, live up to the word “refulgent.”

Back when the only version of THE LION KING was the original animated feature Sandra and I came up with a term to describe certain kinds of triumphant endings: “we all have rawwrs together.” And of course the JURASSIC PARK franchise features several iconic closing scenes in which a dinosaur (the t. rex, usually) goes “rawwr” with a cool backdrop.

So, the closing panel needed some shiny and some roaring. I’m not revealing the entire thing here, but I’m happy to share the “rawwr” part of the panel.

A feathered t. rex has a feathered raptor-oid on its back. They are both roaring at the sky, which is completely full of a barred spiral galaxy.

How close am I to being finished? In lieu of a progress bar, here’s a spreadsheet full of tick-boxes.

A spreadsheet of check-boxes for managing the bonus story project. Column labels include Roughs, Pencils, Inks, Flats, and more. Rows are mostly page numbers (1 to 13). The columns for Roughs and Pencils are completely checked off. Inks and Flats are just 2 pages short of being done. Backgrounds and Paints are less than half done.

My goal is to finish everything during the first week of March, and then race through the various editorial, commentary, and marginalia tasks for Book 19 in time to send it to the printer at the end of March.