Dinosaur Comics is a silly little comic about science, language, and all varieties of human interaction. It is updated five whole days a week and the genius behind it is a citizen of Toronto, Ontario, Ryan North.
His comics are witty, informative, and amusing. The main characters are obviously T-Rex, and his friends Dromiceiomius and Utahraptor, but occasionally they are visited by God, the Devil (who only ever wants to talk about his obsession: video gaming), and other characters (such as The Bard himself, Shakespeare). Comics take place in the past, the future, the present, and in those varying times in alternate realities.
The most amazing thing about the comic is not that North manages a punchline (sometimes two, with the alt text) every time, no matter whether his characters were discussing a serious subject or engaging in some wacky antics complete with hijinks, or that he has been making them for almost a decade, or even that he is one of a few artists who is able to make comic creation his day job (by selling merchandise such as the three books full of his comics).
No, the most amazing thing about Dinosaur Comics is that the same image is used every single time. The first panel is most of T-Rex, by himself. The second is a closeup of his face, though he manages to get his hands in there, too. The third features Dromiceiomius watching T-Rex stomp on a log cabin, while a getaway car for its inhabitants waits nearby. In the fourth panel, we never get to find out whether T-Rex stomps on an innocent bystander, because Utahraptor shows up to distract T-Rex, and in the fifth panel the woman is gone. Stomped on? Escaped by the skin of her teeth? We never find out. The final panel is empty but for T-Rex, standing awkwardly on his own.
North has never changed anything about the art, but always manages to find a way to make the same image interesting and funny. Five days a week. And when guest artists fill in (as sometimes happens in the webcomic world), if they don’t simply insert their own words, they draw their own pictures, and usually make sure to keep things in the spirit of Dinosaur Comics.
There are some people who would hear about Dinosaur Comics and say, “The same picture every day? Sounds boring.” The first thing I would say to those people is, “You’re wrong, it’s awesome.” The second thing I would say is, “But hey, if you don’t want to read something awesome, that’s okay with me, but you’re missing out." The third thing I would say is, "More for me.”
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