Dinosaur Comics - Television Tropes & Idioms

sometimes people ask me "what is dinosaur comics about?" and sometimes all i can say is "about six panels, i'd say"

—random episode title

This comic contains examples of:

A Hell Of A Time: In Hell you can play video games and do whatever you want, but you have to sing songs with all the lyrics replaced by "party".
Alternate Universe: In which everyone has goatees. The comic is also "mirrored" (hoHO), that is to say, the standard comic image is flipped left to right before dialogue (and goatees) are added.
Alt Text: Used for comments or additional punchlines.
Better Than It Sounds: as is said in the above image.
Cloudcuckoolander: T-rex. Also, God.
Chekhovs Gun: Explained in this strip of the "Literary Technique Comics" series. May involve Pop-Tarts.
Cursed With Awesome: Applied to several tragic Greek figures (sometimes in rather contorted ways) in this strip.
Curse Cut Short: As the Alt Text for this episode says, "it's not swearing if you don't enunciate the last phoneme. PRO TIP"
Cut And Paste Comic: It's the Ur Example. And Most Triumphant Example.
Dada Comics: The premise is played surprisingly straight, and the sheer repetition of the art eventually makes it all feel perfectly normal.
Defictionalized: Fans occasionally make Choco-Chops and send them to Ryan North.
Dis Continuity: T-Rex attempts to improve his life by declaring less favourable parts non-canon.
The Ditz: T-Rex, although he can be highly intelligent at times. He is not, however, a Genius Ditz (except when he is).
Dont Explain The Joke: Flaunted with "Jokes Explained!"
Emoticon: OGC
Empathic Environment: Explained as a part of the concept of the "pathetic fallacy" in this strip of the "Literary Technique Comics" series.
Everything's Better With Dinosaurs: Duh.
Fan Fic: The subject of this strip. You kiss in my story.
Floating Advice Reminder: On the "About" page of the site:
About Interacting Socially: This can be tricky! You want to be friendly, but you don't want to come on too strong. My best advice is to carefully observe others, and to relax!
God: Only T-Rex can hear him. He speaks without punctuation, in all-caps, and is something of a ditz himself.
King Of All Cosmos: God.
Lampshade Hanging (every once in a while, a joke about the parameters of the comic, eg here or this one lampshading the lampshading.)
- Also explained/parodied in this strip, also from the "Literary Techniques Comics" series.
Light Gun Game: The Devil is a fan of them.
Magic Feather: It all goes wrong in this strip.
Male Gaze: Discussed in this strip, especially as it pertains to Video Games.
Mirror Universe: a Story Arc that involves this and one of the few art-changes in the comic's history starts in this strip.
Noodle Incident: T-Rex's idea of a party anecdote is the time he lost someone's baby.
No Pronunciation Guide: drom-iss-ee-oh-MY-muss
Prequel: Parodied in this strip, and further applied to Shakespeare in this one.
Never Give The Captain A Straight Answer: Discussed here.
Painting The Fourth Wall: God talks in BOLD ALL CAPS. The Devil meanwhile speaks in BIG RED LETTERS, and the raccoons and cephalopods ARE UNNERVINGLY ITALICISED.
Remix Comic: Technically, every strip after the first one; fan-made Remix Comics of it are, of course, also common.
Satan: One of the odder incarnations of the Adversary in fiction, he's a nerd obsessed with Video Games whose voice comes in from the bottom of the panel. Like God, he talks in all-caps without punctuation.
Secret Keeper: Parodied in this strip, where T-Rex is "the worst Lois Lane ever".
Self Referential Humor: The strip above, among other things.
Shout Out: Recently, a back-and-forth with Andrew Hussie involves Ryan watching him eat dinner. (Archived here.)
- Another MS Paint Adventures-related Shout Out can be found in comic, if you look close enough.
Slap Slap Kiss: Discussed and combined with car chases in this strip.
Straight Gay: Utahraptor (and by extension... T-Rex? The very first story arc involved the two having sex ... somehow). It's not a big deal, and is seldom mentioned.
Sophisticated As Hell: T-rex's entire friggin' speech pattern.
Tempting Fate: Subverted in this strip. In the past, T-Rex has had parties ruined by God, which led to embarrassment with the ladies.
This Is For Emphasis, Bitch!
Viewer Gender Confusion: Dromiceiomimus is female. As with Utahraptor's sexuality, this is rarely stated explicitly, since it is difficult to do so without pulling an As You Know.

Also, when I started the comic, I wrote five thousand comics in one incredibly productive afternoon and have just been posting them one a day since then.

-Ryan North