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It's funny. Laugh. Idle

'Dinosaur Comics' Celebrates 20th Anniversary with T-Rex Finally Stomping Past Sixth Panel (qwantz.com) 24

Posted by EditorDavid from the see-you-later-Utahraptor dept.
In 2003 a 20-year-old Ryan North began writing new dialogue, three days a week, for the exact same set of six drawings of talking dinosaurs. And twenty years later, he's still doing it!

Interestingly, North found the original six drawings on a clip-art CD. So honoring this strange milestone, he's created a special edition in which the online comic strip finally continues beyond its sixth frame: I fired up a virtual machine running Windows XP which ITSELF was tweaking its settings to run Windows 95, which ITSELF was running the Windows 3.1 software I first used in the last few days of January to make myself a comics layout, and started playing around. (Incidentally, the comic's still laid out in MS Paint, but the version that came with XP...

After 20 years I'm allowed to change the images BRIEFLY. And only once!!
While readers laugh along with T-Rex, Utahraptor and Dromiceiomimus, North is experiencing this milestone as "incredible," while also adding "I'm so grateful for everyone who reads my work." Writing Dinosaur Comics has led to so many amazing things - not just meeting readers, not just seeing plush versions of T-Rex go up to the edge of space or to Antarctica... [Y]ou can trace a direct line between me sending an upload command to my FTP client in 2003 and everything I've done since, and if you told me back then that "hey, the Dinosaur Comics guy is going to write Star Trek comics and adopt Vonnegut into comics too and write bestselling (and non-fiction!) guides to both time travel and taking over the world and, oh, let's say be the new writer for the Fantastic Four AND MORE" I would've said "What?! I would like to be the Dinosaur Comics guy, thank you so much."
Looking back to 2003, North also reflects that "The world of online comics is very different from how it was when I started." [T]here's been a huge shift towards social media - functioning effectively as an aggregator - and a huge shift away from people actually visiting websites. But I love websites, and I think they give us the healthiest, most free version of the web, and I hope 20 years from now the only way to connect with other people won't be through a corporate or algorithmically-mediated platform.
And he adds that he hopes he'll still be writing the comic on its 40th anniversary in the year 2043.
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'Dinosaur Comics' Celebrates 20th Anniversary with T-Rex Finally Stomping Past Sixth Panel More

'Dinosaur Comics' Celebrates 20th Anniversary with T-Rex Finally Stomping Past Sixth Panel

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  • Since done by layers of old OS emulation...

    "I'm gonna allow that". -- Tony

  • Are we going to have to wait another 20 years to break the fourth wall?

  • Has anyone identified the actual source of the Dinosaur clip-art?

    I'd presume it's probably a WMF file.

    • In the 90s there were a ton of generic CDs with clip art. In my experience they were available in postscript format for scalability. There might have been other formats but I don't remember.

  • How to invent everything (Score:3)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Sunday February 05, 2023 @02:14PM (#63267201)
    I knew Ryan North rang a bell. He wrote How to Invent Everything, which I suspect 99% of /. readers will love.

    / not Ryan North

  • I don't get it (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I've never once laughed, chuckled, exhaled sharply through my nose, or smiled at anything that was in dinosaur comics the few times I've stumbled upon it (but I've only seen a dozen or so.)
    If anyone reading this post enjoys the comic, can you point to your favourite one? I'm curious what fans see in it.

    • I'd never heard of this comic until today, but now I've read a number of them... and the comic seems amusing to me.

      It's almost like different people can like or dislike different things!

    • It's humor in the same style as Dr Who. You have to get a feel for the author's worldview before it's funny.

    • If something is intended for amusement, and everybody is amused, the artist shouldn't have bothered.

    • Yeah, same here. People used to link it all the time so it looked familiar, and then when I followed the link from TFS I was like, "Wow, that's still a thing?".

      Different strokes for different folks, like I never liked Prince Valiant when I was a kid, then in my late teens and early 20s I gave it another shot and followed the story... for about a year and then got busy with life and stopped caring, then after my Dad passed away I stopped being exposed to print news on a regular basis.

      So if you've got the sp

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word.

        Can I still use it for casual purposes, then?

  • Given everything that Ryan North has been involved in since the strip was started, it is amazing that he has struck with the strip for 20 years. Most others would have abandoned it long ago and eventually disappeared from the web.

    Much like User Friendly.

  • [T]here's been a huge shift towards social media - functioning effectively as an aggregator - and a huge shift away from people actually visiting websites. But I love websites, and I think they give us the healthiest, most free version of the web, and I hope 20 years from now the only way to connect with other people won't be through a corporate or algorithmically-mediated platform.

    It's nice to see this sentiment articulated. Social media is a sewer. Use that URL bar!

  • ...and the child-like humour kinda stinks!

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