Dinosaur Comics

2003webcomicclassic

Dinosaur Comics is a webcomic by Canadian writer Ryan North that has used the exact same six panels of clip-art dinosaurs since February 1st, 2003. The humor comes entirely from the dialogue between T-Rex, Dromiceiomimus, and Utahraptor, whose poses and expressions never change from one strip to the next.

webcomic memesearly internet memesexploitable templatesmulti panel memesabsurdist humor memes

Overview

Dinosaur Comics is a weekday webcomic hosted at qwantz.com where every strip reuses the same six panels of clip-art dinosaurs, letting the writing carry the entire joke3. The recurring cast is T-Rex, the loud philosophizing protagonist, plus the smaller Dromiceiomimus and the skeptical off-panel Utahraptor who usually gets the last word2.

The strip's whole appeal is the constraint. Because the art never changes, readers get the punchline through pure text rhythm, and running gags like T-Rex stomping a tiny house and a lizard in panel two turn into a shared visual language for longtime fans5. Creator Ryan North later leaned into that same voice for tie-in comics and choose-your-own-adventure novels, but Qwantz stayed the daily home base1.

How It Spread

Dinosaur Comics picked up momentum inside the webcomics scene in 2004, starting with a ComixTalk review that April and shout-outs in the commentary of Questionable Content later the same year3. On April 1st, 2005, novelist and comics writer Warren Ellis named it one of his favorite webcomics on his blog, which pushed a wave of new readers toward qwantz.com4.

The following month BoingBoing linked the strip in a webcomics roundup, a Wikiquote page went up in June 2005, and in November a parody site called NewsRex mashed Reuters headlines into the Dinosaur Comics template3. That December, About.com's Web Cartoonist Choice Awards named it the year's Most Outstanding Anthropomorphic Comic3.

By the early 2010s a fan-built timeline of in-comic events was circulating, North was doing repeat Reddit AMAs, and the strip was being written up by outlets including Smithsonian Magazine and Comic Book Resources3. Guest strips using the six-panel template appeared from creators including Wondermark's David Malki, who filled in around North's August 2010 wedding5.

How to Use This Meme

The Dinosaur Comics format is easy to riff on because the panels are fixed: pick T-Rex as the loud thesis-haver, Dromiceiomimus as the friendly follow-up, and Utahraptor as the off-panel skeptic in panels four through six2. Fan and guest versions typically keep the six-panel grid and the stomped-house gag intact, and swap in new dialogue on any topic from linguistics to Shakespeare3.

Frequently Asked Questions

Dinosaur Comics

2003webcomicclassic

Dinosaur Comics is a webcomic by Canadian writer Ryan North that has used the exact same six panels of clip-art dinosaurs since February 1st, 2003. The humor comes entirely from the dialogue between T-Rex, Dromiceiomimus, and Utahraptor, whose poses and expressions never change from one strip to the next.

webcomic memes early internet memes exploitable templates multi panel memes absurdist humor memes

Overview

Dinosaur Comics is a weekday webcomic hosted at qwantz.com where every strip reuses the same six panels of clip-art dinosaurs, letting the writing carry the entire joke3. The recurring cast is T-Rex, the loud philosophizing protagonist, plus the smaller Dromiceiomimus and the skeptical off-panel Utahraptor who usually gets the last word2.

The strip's whole appeal is the constraint. Because the art never changes, readers get the punchline through pure text rhythm, and running gags like T-Rex stomping a tiny house and a lizard in panel two turn into a shared visual language for longtime fans5. Creator Ryan North later leaned into that same voice for tie-in comics and choose-your-own-adventure novels, but Qwantz stayed the daily home base1.

How It Spread

Dinosaur Comics picked up momentum inside the webcomics scene in 2004, starting with a ComixTalk review that April and shout-outs in the commentary of Questionable Content later the same year3. On April 1st, 2005, novelist and comics writer Warren Ellis named it one of his favorite webcomics on his blog, which pushed a wave of new readers toward qwantz.com4.

The following month BoingBoing linked the strip in a webcomics roundup, a Wikiquote page went up in June 2005, and in November a parody site called NewsRex mashed Reuters headlines into the Dinosaur Comics template3. That December, About.com's Web Cartoonist Choice Awards named it the year's Most Outstanding Anthropomorphic Comic3.

By the early 2010s a fan-built timeline of in-comic events was circulating, North was doing repeat Reddit AMAs, and the strip was being written up by outlets including Smithsonian Magazine and Comic Book Resources3. Guest strips using the six-panel template appeared from creators including Wondermark's David Malki, who filled in around North's August 2010 wedding5.

How to Use This Meme

The Dinosaur Comics format is easy to riff on because the panels are fixed: pick T-Rex as the loud thesis-haver, Dromiceiomimus as the friendly follow-up, and Utahraptor as the off-panel skeptic in panels four through six2. Fan and guest versions typically keep the six-panel grid and the stomped-house gag intact, and swap in new dialogue on any topic from linguistics to Shakespeare3.

Frequently Asked Questions