It’s an article 65 million years in the making, it’s “So You Want to Read Comics”.  This is our weekly feature where we take a look at a single topic or genre, then give you two comic book recommendations, perfect for new readers, based on that topic or genre.  This week, we’re taking a look at the Jurassic giants themselves, dinosaurs.

The first dinosaur fossil was discovered in 1677 by Robert Plot.  But it would be almost 200 years before a geologist by the name of William Buckland theorized that the fossil belonged to a large carnivorous lizard. From that moment on, the world’s fascination with these ancient reptilian titans was unstoppable.  The idea of massive, dangerous, monsters roaming the planet both captured imaginations and stoked unknown fears.  It wouldn’t take long before dinosaurs would begin showing up in fictional works.  Authors like Frank Mackenzie Saville, Jules Lermina, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would write some of the earliest novels utilizing these beasts.  Fast forward to the television era and we see shows like Land of The Lost, Dinosaurs, and countless educational shows would bring the love of dinosaurs to a whole new generation and keep young kids’ imaginations latched onto dinosaurs for years.  Of course, in 1993 we get possibly the most famous piece of fiction featuring dinosaurs with the Steven Spielberg film adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park.

With all that being said, here are a couple comics for fans of dinosaurs looking for a place to jump into comic reading.

AGE OF REPTILES

Writer: Ricardo Delgado

Artist: Ricardo Delgado

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Age of Reptiles isn’t totally a traditional style comic, in that, it’s actually wordless.  Created by a world renown storyboard artist named Ricardo Delgado, this is an anthology of stories exploring the exploits of various dinosaurs living millions of years before the first human crawled.  What’s interesting about this collection is that even without words and mostly realistic art, Delgado is able to convey hints of emotion and motivation in his reptilian characters.  It shouldn’t be a surprise that some of the stories here are often bloody, brutal, and unflinching in their depictions of a harsh land, but there’s also surprising moments of humor and even endearment.  The lack of words also helps to convey a believability to these stories, of course dinosaurs weren’t standing around chatting about their day to day, but you can imagine a fight between a T-rex and some smaller carnivores over a recent kill, being the cause of a grudge and more bloodshed.  Many of the individual comics that make up this collection are out of print making this one of the few ways to read these amazing stories these days.

DINOSAUR COMICS

Writer: Ryan North

Artist: Ryan North

Publisher: Ryan North

You can read Dinosaur Comics here

So, we go from a series with no words at all, to a comic where there’s nothing but talking dinosaurs.  Dinosaur Comics is a long running webcomic focusing on the humorous conversations and rantings of a green dinosaur and an orange dinosaur.  The topics more often than not have nothing to do with dinosaurs, but instead topics like self-worth, the future, is there such thing as objectively good art, are all touched on.  Here’s the thing though, each entry into this series features the exact same panels, only the words change.  I’m not saying that this comic is tailor made for fans of dinosaurs, but you need to have at least an appreciation for the images of dinosaurs in order to read thousands of comics featuring the exact same image. Since creating Dinosaur Comics, Ryan North has gone on to be a prolific comic book writer, having written runs of The Fantastic Four, Squirrel Girl, and many others, so if you’re a fan of the writing in Dinosaur Comics, there’s plenty more out there for you to dig into.

What are some of your favorite dinosaurs in fiction?  What did you think of these recommendations? Let us know in the comments section below.

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