July 30th, 2010: YOU GUYS! At San Diego I also saw some AMAZING T-Rex and Utahraptor cosplayers named Emily (Utahraptor) and Ambrose (T-Rex). Ambrose's sister tailored the T-Rex's trousers and suit and Emily's mom made her dress! It was amazing, and then I put on the T-Rex head and this is what my world looked like. TOTALLY EXCELLENT. Great work, guys! We posed for a few photos and people kept coming by insisting that they take a picture too, which is the mark of a great costume. Ambrose's T-Rex was wearing a bow tie (nailed it!) and Emily's Utahraptor even had the foot claw. It was the best ever; I'd never even imagined people dressing up as T-Rex and Utahraptor before SDCC and I am forced to rate it FIVE out of a possible four awesomes!

– Ryan

July 29th, 2010: Also at Comic Con I met someone who had this excellent and much-less-blurry-in-real-life T-Rex necklace! And the transit stop signs by the convention centre were in Klingon.

– Ryan

July 28th, 2010: I decided to write about SDCC in several parts so as to not make an extremely long post! On the first day I met an extremely excellent lady who had an extremely excellent tattoo starring someone you might recognize! I rate this tattoo: ENTIRELY EXCELLENT. We also found a book called "Gay's Anatomy" (NSFW? Maybe?) which I really liked because of the pun and maybe you will too? GAYS ANATOMY, you guys!

Finally, I got a few emails about yesterday's comic wondering how T-Rex could travel BACK in time to the Titanic's sinking if he's in dinosaur times. The answer is that he was referring to the Dinosaur Titanic, an entirely different ship with a very similar story and he was just dropping the "dinosaur", the same way as when he refers to Dinosaur Bill Cosby or Dinosaur Last Thursday. It is an entirely satisfying explanation!

– Ryan

July 27th, 2010: San Diego Comic Con was awesome and I am still jetlagged and recovering, BUT, I will have some awesome things to share with you tomorrow. It will feature PICTURES.

– Ryan

July 26th, 2010: San Diego was awesome! I'm in a plane on my way back to Toronto when you're reading this (either that or I am sleeping before or after the flight or I am boarding it or whatever, POINT IS, at some point Monday I am up in the air and that is Exciting)

– Ryan

← previousJuly 23rd, 2010next

July 23rd, 2010: San Diego Comic Con is crazy: there's this huge room and it's all full of comics and STUFF. San Diego itself is transformed into this alternate universe where comics are the dominate form of cultural expression and every other medium panders to them, which is rad!

An example: there's bus ads for shows like Nurse Jackie with the slogan "Our heroes have more fun" complete with "biff" "bam" and "pow" sound effects on the images. It's patronizing and ridiculous, but it's also kinda neat, like the coolest kid in class dropping thousands of dollars on giant coke-bottle glasses only to calmly snap them in half and tape them together in the middle, wearing them around so he looks like a nerd, what he thinks nerds look like, what TV nerds looked like on TV in the 1960s. Cargo-cult advertising.

Anyway, it's pretty fun!

– Ryan

← previousJuly 21st, 2010next

July 21st, 2010: I am in San Diego! So far it's awesome, Team Comics rented a house instead of a bunch of hotel rooms and it turns out it's a mansion with chandeliers and drawing rooms and dining room tables with dragon feet. I'd show pictures but they'll make you feel bad about your current living situation; when I get back to Toronto I'm going to have to insist that me and my friends all move into a giant house together. With a chandelier.

– Ryan

← previousJuly 19th, 2010next

July 19th, 2010: You know what happens this week? SAN DIEGO COMIC CON, and I will totally be there. I'll be at the TopatoCo booth (Booth 1231), which I noticed is MALE CARTOONISTS ONLY this year but that's just because the female ones decided not to come! I'M LOOKING AT YOU, EMILY HORNE OF A SOFTER WORLD DOT COM. Anyway, we men will be there behind the booth, huggin', pillow fighting, "practice kissing" - the usual.

Because of the huge scale of SDCC, I'll be leaving tomorrow to fly down there, and unfortunately these here comics will be Monday-Wednesday-Friday instead of every day. That's still pretty good, tough! That's THREE FREE AND HOPEFULLY AWESOME COMICS. Plus, they have dinosaurs in them! DINOSAURS

Tonight is the Scott Pilgrim Volume 6 Release Party in Toronto, and Mal will be there! Will YOU?

– Ryan

July 19th, 2010: You know what happens this week? SAN DIEGO COMIC CON, and I will totally be there. I'll be at the TopatoCo booth (Booth 1231), which I noticed is MALE CARTOONISTS ONLY this year but that's just because the female ones decided not to come! I'M LOOKING AT YOU, EMILY HORNE OF A SOFTER WORLD DOT COM. Anyway, we men will be there behind the booth, huggin', pillow fighting, "practice kissing" - the usual.

Because of the huge scale of SDCC, I'll be leaving tomorrow to fly down there, and unfortunately these here comics will be Monday-Wednesday-Friday instead of every day. That's still pretty good, tough! That's THREE FREE AND HOPEFULLY AWESOME COMICS. Plus, they have dinosaurs in them! DINOSAURS

Tonight is the Scott Pilgrim Volume 6 Release Party in Toronto, and Mal will be there! Will YOU?

– Ryan

July 16th, 2010: What's happening ALL DAY TOMORROW? Oh, don't you remember? It's the annual July Dinosaur Comics Check Out My Sweet Shirt, And Then Talk To Me Because I'm Awesome Day. Wear your Dinosaur Comics shirt this Saturday to invite other readers to talk to you! If you don't have one, keep an eye out for an interesting-looking person who does! SEXY TIMES or at least FRIENDLY TIMES ensue.

We did this once before on extremely short notice and had some success, so this is the longer-notice version of it! And it's on a weekend too, so your dress code is hopefully your own on Saturday. I even made a Facebook event, and when in history has an event with a FACEBOOK PAGE been dumb? DON'T ANSWER THAT

– Ryan

July 15th, 2010: What's this Saturday? Oh, don't you remember? It's the annual July Dinosaur Comics Check Out My Sweet Shirt, And Then Talk To Me Because I'm Awesome Day. Wear your Dinosaur Comics shirt this Saturday to invite other readers to talk to you! If you don't have one, keep an eye out for an interesting-looking person who does! SEXY TIMES or at least FRIENDLY TIMES ensue.

We did this once before on extremely short notice and had some success, so this is the longer-notice version of it! And it's on a weekend too, so your dress code is hopefully your own on Saturday. I even made a Facebook event, and when in history has an event with a FACEBOOK PAGE been dumb? DON'T ANSWER THAT

– Ryan

July 14th, 2010: What's this Saturday? Oh, don't you remember? It's the annual July Dinosaur Comics Check Out My Sweet Shirt, And Then Talk To Me Because I'm Awesome Day. Wear your Dinosaur Comics shirt this Saturday to invite other readers to talk to you! If you don't have one, keep an eye out for an interesting-looking person who does! SEXY TIMES or at least FRIENDLY TIMES ensue.

We did this once before on extremely short notice and had some success, so this is the longer-notice version of it! And it's on a weekend too, so your dress code is hopefully your own on Saturday. I even made a Facebook event, and when in history has an event with a FACEBOOK PAGE been dumb? DON'T ANSWER THAT

– Ryan

July 13th, 2010: I've been a fan of The IT Crowd since it came on the air, so it was extra exciting to see that in this week's episode Roy was wearing a time-travel shirt you might find very familiar! Totally awesome.

– Ryan

July 12th, 2010: Sunday afternoon, I watched the World Cup final with some friends. Afterwards a photo I took of people climbing up on streetcars to celebrate was on the front page of Torontoist!

– Ryan

July 9th, 2010: Two new things!

NEW THING ONE: Dinosaur Comics has an official forum for the first time in many years! I created it just yesterday, and it's taking the form of a subreddit on Reddit.com. Here it is! It will hopefully be self-moderating and also awesome.

NEW THING TWO: Jon has a new comic and it's called Scenes from a Multiverse! I wanted to link to it when there were plenty of comics for you to read and now there TOTALLY ARE. Enjoy!

– Ryan

July 8th, 2010: Oh hey what time is it? It's new footer time! This summer footer is a bit different than the usual ones, and it was sent to me by Danielle Baskin, a talented lady who also made my bike helmet. I call it, "Tiny Woman's Road Trip Vacation", a name that is both descriptive AND accurate.

– Ryan

July 7th, 2010: Sometimes I have no news to report here, but today is not one of those days, because I did a really good job shaving yesterday and I wanted to share that. It was an A+ experience. It was solid marks all around for Team Ryan.

– Ryan

July 6th, 2010: Order of Tales ended yesterday! Now is the perfect chance to read this comic from the beginning, which is something I recommend you do... NOW

– Ryan

July 5th, 2010: Happy Nationalism Day, Canadians and also eventually Americans!

– Ryan

July 2nd, 2010: The other day I mentioned Toronto police chief Bill Blair, and I know to a lot of people outside of Toronto it's PRETTY IRRELEVANT, but I thought the story was so crazy it was worth sharing. Anyway, the story has gotten even more surreal! After the G20, and as a way to justify the one billion Canadians spent on security, the police had a press conference showing all the weapons they confiscated from protesters. Fair enough, right? "This is what we protected you from".

Only it turns out that the biggest weapon there, a crossbow, was taken from somewhere else in an unrelated incident, and a bunch of the others (foam arrows and shields and chainmail) were taken from the costume of a LIVE-ACTION ROLEPLAYER who wasn't even at the G20. Blair even singled out the LARPer's foam arrows and told the media they were "designed to be dipped in flammable liquid and set ablaze".

These are costume arrows with pool noodles and socks on the end, taken from a guy who wasn't even at the G20. He was on his way here.

Toronto police chief Bill Blair, ladies and gentlemen.

(If you're interested, the always-great Torontist has collected the 14 essential G20 videos. There's some scary and some inspiring moments there, check them out!)

– Ryan