You may know Ryan North as the writer behind The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, but before he was the writer of those jokes at the bottom of the page in Doreen Green’s comic, he was writing alt-text jokes for Dinosaur Comics!
Since February 1st, 2003, North has been making a comic strip about a hapless Tyrannosaurus Rex in conversation with a smarmy Utahraptor (with an occasional interjection from a passing Dromiceiomimus). In one panel, T-Rex is about to stomp on a cabin and a car, and in another panel, T-Rex looks ready to stomp on a person.
Since every single one of the comics uses the same template, it becomes something of an intellectual experiment: how many different permutations of Dinosaur Comics can there possibly be?
It turns out: a lot! In the seventeen years since it debuted, the webcomic hasn’t always had the same number of monthly updates, but it has been consistently updated, regardless of other projects that North had been working on at the time. That means that there are literally hundreds of comics about T-Rex ruminating over clichés, collaborating with Utahraptor for some surprising Sherlock Holmes fanfic, and of course, everyone’s favorite, making math jokes!
Is there a finite number of Dinosaur Comics? The answer is: probably, but at this point, we can’t say for certain, because the Dinosaur Comics just keep on coming. If you’re looking for a webcomic with an archive that’s even longer than an Argentinosaurus, then Dinosaur Comics has your number.
After you’ve checked out the backlist of Dinosaur Comics you can follow Ryan North on Twitter to keep up with everything he’s up to, and if you haven’t already, be sure to take a look at The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl by North and Erica Henderson.
