Your Whole Family is Made Out of Meat: The Best of Dinosaur Comics, 2003-2005 A.D.

Dinosaur Comics #0

by Ryan North

Dinosaur Comics is an intelligent, thoughtful and hilarious daily comic which creatively uses the same six panel format for each installment. The daily comic first appeared on-line at www.qwantz.com and now boasts over 300,000 unique readers each month. Fans "click in" to see the philosophical thoughts, rants and misgivings of T-rex, the neurotic main character played by, well, a house-stopming-0apparently-college-educated Tyrannasaurus Rex. He carries on regular dialog with Utahraptor and Dromiceiomimus while God and the Devil make regular off-screen cameos.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Humor, Fiction, Webcomic, Graphic Novels Comics, Comedy

236 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 2005

About the author

Hi, I'm Ryan! I was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 1980 and since then have written several books. You can read my Wikipedia page for more, or check out my author site at RyanNorth.ca!

I'm the author of the webcomic Dinosaur Comics (that's the comic where the pictures don't change but the words do, it's better than it sounds and I've also done crazy things like turn Shakespeare into a choose-your-own-path adventure, write a comic for Marvel about a girl with all the powers of a squirrel, or mess up walking my dog so badly it made the news.

I'm working on more stuff as we speak, hopefully it's good

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

The thing I love most about this strip is that Ryan North assumes the reader is intelligent.

[Ray Dunsmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best of the early years of one of the most reliable of the early 00s crop of webcomics: Ryan North's avant-garde Dinosaur Comics , the heady, dialogue-centric comic where the art never changes and the subject can go from a surprisingly cogent discussion of gender as a social construct vs. biological nature (extremely impressive for the internet circa 2005) to a gleefully immature give-and-take on the joys of "doing two chicks at once" (that's more like it) from one page to the next. You can see the beginnings of North's surprisingly prolific oeuvre here as the characters grow from basic archetypes for punchline delivery into full-fledged, witty characters of their own. There's even a glimpse at the origins of his Machine of Death stories. But then, maybe his career over the last 20 years is only surprising to me because I've known him first & foremost, since the days I read these exact comics in the junior high computer lab, as "the Dinosaur Comics guy." Shame this is out of print now, but thankfully, fairly cheap to find secondhand and holds up far better than most things the internet produced from 2003-05!

[Allan Olley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dinosaur comics consist of the same six panels of artwork on a page, featuring a T. Rex (who is in every panel) that steps on houses and a woman, a Dromiceiomimus appears in one panel and a Utahraptor in the next two. The comics vary the words included with the images in each case. This book is a collection of 236 such comics. Most involve the T-Rex making some odd declaration or inquiry. The dialogue may make reference to the action in the artwork or it may involve questions about life or society such as the idea of utilitarianism and related paradoxes or it may summarize a movie briefly and hilariously.

The fun of these comics is mostly in the quirky intellectual humour with odd takes on various subjects intellectual and mundane. The T-Rex is usually an egotistical, oblivious, naive and very enthusiastic and those antics may also be the occasion for a joke. The Utahraptor will often make a more rational and calm response to T-Rex's latest outburst. God and the devil also occasionally add their voice to the discussion neither is a very prosaic entity both having about the demeanor of a bored college kid in these discussions.

[HUCOSA]

I really liked the book and the story

[Henry Pulzetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the little notes down at the bottom of each page, Dino comics wouldn't be the same without them.

[Dawn Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

You may already know Ryan North. He seems to be at the center of the Toronto Comix Mafia, which is fascinating, because as far as I can tell, Ryan North can’t really draw. No, really. His website at qwantz.com is called Dinosaur Comics, and it’s a sort of clip-art haiku meditation on cheerful philosophical absurdity.

Using the same six panels in every comic, he expounds upon the mysteries of life and the marvels of science with the help of… well, dinosaurs, natch. They feature a rambunctious, party-loving T-Rex and his compatriots, the level-headed Dromiceiomimus and the long-suffering Utahraptor, who spend their time discussing the nature of friendship, gender, and Batman. T-Rex loves him some Batman, ladies and dudes.

You may find his style contagious; I feel sure you’ll be using capslock a lot more in your day to day life. Also, trufax: he inspired Matt to to write a choose your own adventure book! This is a man who enjoys joy, and isn’t afraid to be enthusiastic, and that makes him fuckin’ adorable.

Ryan North is also the man behind Project Wonderful, a kinder, gentler model for web advertising, and he’s always giving folks he digs a shoutout. Thanks to him, I discovered Kate Beaton and Anthony Clark, people whose comics match Ryan’s for charm and wit, with the added bonus of magnificent art skills. Really just A++ stuff, and they too have twitter accounts that are very worth your while.

In summary, Ryan North is my favorite thing ever because he’s funny and kind, and because he wrote this comic, which may well have led to me falling in love with Matt. (I can’t really tell you how, but I can say that it involved T-shirts and Valentine’s Day.) Ryan North is a force for good in the world, and I can’t recommend him highly enough.

That’s it for SCIENCE, bitches!

[Purple · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely superb! Dinosaur Comics is the only online comic that I read regularly (i.e. always) and a paper version is a must have! Really, this could go on all of my shelves as the little conversations it contains cover pretty much everything.

I honestly have no idea how Ryan comes up with fresh ideas every weekday. The man, in short, is a genius. If you haven't read the comic, do so now. It's at www.qwantz.com. It takes a few to get into, but you'll soon learn to love T Rex's innocent questioning of the world around him and his big big plans.

I look forward to many more collections like this one.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Best of Dinosaur Comics 2003-2005 AD (subtitle: Your Whole Family is Made Out of Meat!) is a collection of a webcomic strips that by any reasonable analysis really should never have gotten to the point of having enough strips to be collected. Author Ryan North basically took six panels of generic dinosaur clip art and just changed the words to make a new comics every weekday. Not the pictures, just the words.

Then he just writes words. What's amazing: he's been doing this since 2003. What's even more amazing than THAT is that Dinosaur Comics is totally, inexplicably awesome. You should at least check out a few strips at www.qwantz.com.

[Trin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A birthday present, and a good weapon against an apocalyptic future where the internet implodes but I still really really need to read Dinosaur Comics (which, come on, I totally would). This collection is totally fucking awesome, as Dinosaur Comics so often is. Redundant to what's on the web of course, but I'm glad to have at least some of it in hard copy, though. No one expects the internet-imploding apocalypse!

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've enjoyed Dinosaur Comics on the web for about a year and a half, and I finally coughed up the dough for this collection of the comics from 2003-2005. If you want to see what Dinosaur comics is like, check out www.qwantz.com. Spoiler alert: the pictures never change. Anyway, this book was delicious. I read straight through in two sittings. If you like me, you'll probably like this book.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Dinosaur Comics. I should after mailing a ton of them from the FOUND/Quack! "warehouse" last summer.

But seriously, they're pretty funny. Check out the website.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my favorite comic strip these days, and this collection is very entertaining. I highly recommend this book, and also highly recommend just checking out the Web site at www.qwantz.com It's funny stuff.

[Science For The People]

Featured on Skeptically Speaking's special episode "Smart Comics for Smart People" on September 7, 2011, during an interview with comic author Ryan North. http://skepticallyspeaking.ca/news/we...

[Nicolas · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say? These are basically perfect. The author has a sharp wit and uses the format to the fullest.

For more on this and other Dinosaur books tune in to this episode of the All the Books Show: https://soundcloud.com/allthebooks/ep...

[Carrie Rolph · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you thought Napoleon Dynamite was funny and happen to be amused by dinosaurs having tiny little arms, then you will love this book.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read this and i feel, this is me. i am t-rex.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dinosaur Comics are both educational and awesome. I don't know if I can explain why I love T-Rex so much.

[A.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I occasionally read Dinosaur Comics online, which is how I found out about this book.
Philosophical, amusing, silly and whimsical, if you love the online comic, you'll love the book.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun and a fabulous cover. Dinosaur Comics always makes me a happy person. I like it when it builds up online in drifts and I get to wade through it.

[Benedict Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is fabulous beyond words.

[Shanna (shannasaurus_rex_reads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an entire book of Dinosaur Comics. Of course it gets 5 stars, because that's what you rate friggin' awesome books.

[AK · Rating 4 out of 5]

so silly, so good