TNB Night Owl – Dinosaur Comics

Dinosaur Comics book, photo by AlienMotives

What do you do if you’re an aspiring comic strip maker but you don’t know how to draw?

There have been a number of answers to this question. By far, the most common responses have been to learn to draw or to find an artist who’d like to collaborate with you. Then you have Ryan North’s choice.

Faced with a good mind for humor but poor visual art skills, North decided to use clip art. This, in and of itself, is not particularly unusual. He set to work and constructed six panels that showed a T-Rex stepping on a house, and interacting with a Utahraptor and a Dromiceiomimus.

Having created the six-panel strip, he proceeded to fill it in with dialogue and… he had the first Dinosaur Comics!

The second strip was… the same six-panel strip with different dialogue. As was the third, fourth, and all of the rest of the strips through today. Begun in 2003, running three strips a week, Ryan North has managed to produce thousands of comics, all using the same six panels.

And all without learning to draw, and while providing a young adult-safe (occasionally PG for mature concepts) strip.

Question of the night: What’s your favorite dinosaur?

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About AlienMotives 1991 Articles
Ex-Navy Reactor Operator turned bookseller. Father of an amazing girl and husband to an amazing wife. Tired of willful political blindness, but never tired of politics. Hopeful for the future.