Dinosaur Comics

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Can be found here.

Tropes used in Dinosaur Comics include:

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Ryan North thinks everything is awesome!
• Alternate Universe: One recurring alternate universe is a Mirror Universe, where everyone has goatees and the comic is also "mirrored" (hoHO) as well. One strip takes a look into various alternate universes, including the Mirrored one (whose T-Rex has helpfully shaved his goatee).
• Alt Text: Used for comments or additional punchlines. The strip titles (only found on the archive page and feed) and "contact" links for each strip serve similar purposes.
• And That's Terrible: "sometimes no matter how much we prepare, boats will sink and that is terrible."
• Animalistic Abomination: Played for Laughs sorta. The T-rex and Utahraptor from one of the Alternate Universes in this strip are standing under colored lights that give them their usual appearance, because their regular colors would drive viewers to madness.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Lampshaded, as demonstrated.
• Bathos: Much of the humor.^[context?]
• Bi the Way: T-Rex, apparently (see Invisible to Gaydar below). He's had (offscreen) sex with Dromiceimimus at least twice over the comic's run and had an affair with Utahraptor that he doesn't actually remember.
• Brick Joke:
  • T-Rex forgets his wallet on the moon in this strip. 323 strips later we get the Alt Text to this strip
  • Also, the mention of ex-girlfriend names in this strip results in nostalgia in this strip over 5 years later.
• Catch Phrase T-Rex's "Today is a good day I think for _____"
• Cloudcuckoolander: T-Rex. Also, God.^[context?]
• Chekhov's Gun: Explained in this strip of the "Literary Technique Comics" series. May involve Pop-Tarts.
• Choose Your Own Adventure: "CYOA" that amusingly features a But Thou Must!. A later guest strip by Andrew Hussie features T-Rex attempting to do an animated strip version of a CYOA, with Dromiceiominus and Utahraptor discussing with him about the problems with handling a CYOA in said format. It falls apart in the fifth panel, where T-Rex and Utahraptor end up carrying their conversation through the panel shifts. In case you want to read the whole thing at your own pace, here you go. Click the swf(image) after clicking the link and then use the left and right arrow keys (on your keyboard) to navigate.
• Cliff Hanger: The "Literary Technique Comics" series explains it.
• Colony Drop: The "the last Dinosaur Comic ever" overlay replaces the last panel of every comic with one.
• Continuity Nod: After espousing the benefits of having a truly gender-neutral third person singular pronoun (and deciding that 'thon' sounded coolest) T-Rex uses it in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it way later on referring to gender-neutral babies.
• Cursed with Awesome: Applied to several tragic Greek figures (sometimes in rather contorted ways) in this strip.
• Curse Cut Short: As the Alt Text for this episode says, "it's not swearing if you don't enunciate the last phoneme. PRO TIP"
• Cut and Paste Comic: One of the first.
• Dada Comics: The premise is played surprisingly straight, and the sheer repetition of the art eventually makes it all feel perfectly normal.
• Defictionalized:
  • Fans occasionally make Choco-Chops and send them to Ryan North.
  • In 2005, T-Rex came up with an idea for a book. In 2010, this was published.
• Deus Ex Machina: T-Rex explains it in the "Literary Technique Comics" series.
• Discontinuity: T-Rex attempts to improve his life by declaring less favourable parts non-canon.
• The Ditz: T-Rex, although he can be highly intelligent at times. He is not, however, a Genius Ditz (except when he is).
• Don't Explain the Joke: Flaunted with "Jokes Explained!"
• Easter Egg: Add "&butiwouldratherbereading=nedroid" to the end of a Dinosaur Comics URL to change T-Rex and Utahraptor into Reginald and Beartato. You can also change them into Problem Sleuth and Pickle Inspector, xkcd characters, make T-Rex into a Borg, make T-Rex swear more, and make T-Rex wear more.
• Emoticon: OGC
• Empathic Environment: Explained as a part of the concept of the "pathetic fallacy" in this strip of the "Literary Technique Comics" series.
• Everything's Better with Dinosaurs: Duh.
• Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods: CREEPY CEPHALOPODS WHO LIVE NEXT DOOR TO T-REX AND WONDER ABOUT HIS OPINIONS CONCERNING THE NATURE OF CONSENT.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: It's a comic... about dinosaurs. In some cases, it's used as the punchline.
• Faked Kidnapping: T-Rex in this guest comic.
• Fanfic: The subject of this strip. You kiss in my story.
• Fetish: For T-Rex, it's entropy decreasing in a closed system.
• Flat What: To the point where other web cartoonists will attribute its invention to Ryan North.
• Floating Advice Reminder: On the "About" page of the site:

About Interacting Socially: This can be tricky! You want to be friendly, but you don't want to come on too strong. My best advice is to carefully observe others, and to relax!

• Friends with Benefits: Whatever is between Dromiceiomimus and T-Rex has inklings of this, but even they are not really sure about the state of their relationship.
• God: Only T-Rex can hear him. He speaks without punctuation, in all-caps, and is something of a ditz himself.
• A God Am I: T-Rex swaps places with God for about 2 minutes, until God forces them to swap back after realizing much to his disgust that T-Rex's mouth tastes like T-Rex spit.
  • And just when T-Rex had figured out the controls too >:
• Great Way to Go: When something is sad—like death—but also awesome—like an arrow managing to hit something not even the size of a quarter when dropped randomly from a plane—it is sawesome.
• A Hell of a Time: In Hell you can play video games and do whatever you want, but you have to sing songs with all the lyrics replaced by "party".
• Just Testing You: God asks T-Rex where wind comes from, and then defends himself: "UM OF COURSE I KNOW I JUST WANT TO SEE IF YOU DO"
• "Kick Me" Prank: Instead of 'kick me' T-Rex wants to plant a sign that says 'kiss me'.
• King of All Cosmos: God.^[context?]
• Lampshade Hanging (every once in a while, a joke about the parameters of the comic, eg here or this one lampshading the lampshading.) This was explained/parodied in this strip, also from the "Literary Techniques Comics" series.
• Large Ham: T-Rex^[context?]
• Light Gun Game: The Devil is a fan of them.
• Long Runner: There are over 2,000 pages. So... yeah.
• Magic Feather: It all goes wrong in this strip.
• Male Gaze: Discussed in this strip, especially as it pertains to Video Games.
• Minimalism: Of course, given that it has the same six panels on every single issue only with different texts.
• Mirror Universe: a Story Arc that involves this and one of the few art-changes in the comic's history starts in this strip.
• Never Give the Captain a Straight Answer: Discussed here.
• New Year's Resolution^[context?]
• Noodle Incident: T-Rex's idea of a party anecdote is the time he lost someone's baby.
• No Pronunciation Guide: drom-iss-ee-oh-MY-muss
• Oh Frig: Its not all that uncommon for panel 2 or panel 6 to be T-Rex Oh Crap moments.
• Overly Long Title: Most of the strip titles.
• Prequel: Parodied in this strip, and further applied to Shakespeare in this one.
• Painting the Fourth Wall: God talks in BOLD ALL CAPS. The Devil meanwhile speaks in BIG RED LETTERS, and the raccoons and cephalopods ARE UNNERVINGLY ITALICISED.
• Pungeon Master: T-Rex. It can get bad.^[context?]
• Remix Comic: Technically, every strip after the first one; fan-made Remix Comics of it are, of course, also common.
• Retconning the Wiki: T-Rex suggests that we solve this problem on Wikipedia by only vandalizing the article about chickens, because "dudes already know about chickens."
• Room Full of Crazy: The title for this strip:

sometimes i imagine my life where i write the same comics i've been writing, but instead of publishing them online i put them in a big stack, or, you know, wallpaper my house with them and never invite anyone over. hah! WHO IS THE CRAZY ONE NOW

• Satan: One of the odder incarnations of the Adversary in fiction, he's a nerd obsessed with Video Games whose voice comes in from the bottom of the panel. Like God, he talks in all-caps without punctuation.
• Secret Keeper: Parodied in this strip, where T-Rex is "the worst Lois Lane ever".
• Self-Referential Humor: The strip above, among other things.
• Shout-Out:
  • A back-and-forth with Andrew Hussie involves Ryan watching him eat dinner. (Archived here.)
  • Another MS Paint Adventures-related Shout-Out can be found in this comic, if you look close enough.
  • The Dinosaur At the End of This Comic.
  • Apparently, the Greek myths were made up by a five-year-old and transcribed onto scrolls by his 30-year-old brother.
  • In a bit of Alt Text:

Toronto's politicians and tourism board will look up and shout, "Boo hoo hoo we can't increase tourism and we've never even tried calling ourselves 'Omega City, Where It's Always Two For One Tacos', tell us what to do, Ryan" and I'll look down and whisper, "No."

• • The one where T-Rex wears more features an actual Nedroid T-shirt.
  • Apparently, "too crazy" is like "fhqwhgads."
  • There's one to Adventure Time here.

T-rex: What time is it, God?! God: ADVEN-- T-rex: No it's 3:31 pm EST.

• • Xkcd get in some good natured ribbing in this comic's Alt Text
• Slap Slap Kiss: Discussed and combined with car chases in this strip.
• Sophisticated As Hell: T-rex's entire friggin' speech pattern.
• Invisible to Gaydar: Utahraptor (and by extension... T-Rex? The very first story arc involved the two having sex ... somehow). It's not a big deal, and is seldom mentioned. T-Rex is probably bisexual; he and Dromiceiomimus have also had dinosaur sex. Then again, T-Rex doesn't remember the event, and questions if it really ever happened. (Non-consensual dinosaur sex?) We're pretty sure that time travel was involved. Word of God confirms that Utahraptor is gay but "doesn't go on about it that much because he has interests outside of being gay?".
• Stylistic Suck: The Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff overlay.
• Talkative Loon: T-rex, from time to time.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Every member of the cast aside from T-rex, Utahraptor, and Dromiceiomimus, to varying degrees.
  • The Voice: God, Satan, Morris the Bug, the Cephalopods and Raccoons
  • The Ghost: Tarbosaurus, among others
• Tempting Fate: Subverted in this strip. In the past, T-Rex has had parties ruined by God, which led to embarrassment with the ladies.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch^[context?]
• Title Drop:

T-Rex: I just can't figure out these...these Dinosaur Comics. God: OH GOD

• Totally Radical: T-rex is quite fond of the word "rad".
• Tonight Someone Dies:

Alt Text: This installment of Dinosaur Comics stars T-Rex, Utahraptor, Dromiceiomimus and a cat that comes up in conversation. Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story! In this issue, one! Of! These! Characters! Will! DIE!

• Translation Convention

T-Rex: "I am a new man, cats and kittens!" (title: FUN FACT: i do some translating in the comics. t-rex originally said "i am a new tyrannosauroid, protomammals and juvenile protomammals!")

• Tyrannosaurus Rex
• Unreliable Narrator: Another trope explained in the "Literary Technique Comics" series (it even provides the quote for the trope's page).
• Visual Pun: Mr. Tusks, even if he's never actually seen.
• Voice of the Legion: The Devil, according to the alt text of this strip.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: T-Rex and Ryan North in his comments.
• Wolverine Claws: God has them.
• You Do NOT Want to Know : The premise of this particular strip.

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later: i confess that i write comics by just filling a binary file with about 65k of 1s and 0s and somehow it ALWAYS WORKS —Title of September 6th, 2011