Though the art never changes, the dialogue keeps readers on their toes.
Since 2003, web-comic artist Ryan North has been producing the much-loved Dinosaur Comics. Although the art is all royalty-free clip art from a CD North bought in 1995, he continues to draw readers in solely with witty dialogue. “I believe good writing can save bad art,” said North. The art in the comic stays the same from day to day, but North has a new and hilarious script every day.
Working with the same template for six years would appear to be restrictive, but North sees it as exactly the opposite. “I wanted to work within my restrictions, I guess! I thought it would be more restricting too, but there’s really so much you can do with it! This was a very nice thing to discover,” said North, in a web interview on reddit.com.
Before deciding on his final layout, North went through lengthy delegation to decide on what he would eventually do. Among the things he considered were: changing the art but keeping the story the same; changing the art weekly (which failed when an attempt to create Astronaut Comics was foiled by unattractive astronaut clipart); and an alternate layout for Dinosaur comics that didn’t have the current main character, T-Rex, in the first two panels.
The comic mainly focuses on the life of T-Rex, who voices his opinion on anything from what a beautiful day it is to what it would be like in a parallel universe. Sharing in the conversations are his dinosaur friends, Dromiceiomimus and Utahraptor, as well as several off-screen or tiny characters such as God, the devil, bugs, and crazy raccoons.
T-rex and his co-stars often talk about subject matter that requires a bit of research. Because of this, North has had letters written to him in which the person writing is convinced that he has a degree in the field of nearly every subject his characters talk about. “I’ve seen lots of ruminations on really diverse topics like biology, linguistics, history, computer science, and Shakespeare- is any of this rooted in what you used to do/study?” asked a fan. “The secret is that I just do a bit of research before each strip that requires it (so I don’t sound like an idiot to people who actually know what they’re talking about). That, and to ask people what the most awesome thing they know about is,” explained North.
So, despite the claims his fans have made, North only has an undergraduate degree in computer science and a graduate degree in computational linguistics. North has proudly stated on several occasions that his degree in computational linguistics gives him a license to play around with the English language. “It’s like jazz: You learn the rules to break them — as long as you can break them in a meaningful way,” said North.
Dinosaur Comics is an amazing comic that anybody can enjoy. The educated sense of humor appeals to intelligent individuals, but the humor can be enjoyed by the common layperson as well, with only a Dictionary and Wikipedia on hand. I highly recommend that every person read this comic.
Dinosaur Comics can be found at http://www.qwantz.com
Ryan North can be contacted via his Twitter: http://twitter.com/ryanqnorth
and his email: ryan@qwantz.com
