Sheldon, the Tiny Dinosaur who Thinks he's a Turtle
is a comic strip about, well, a tiny dinosaur who thinks he's a turtle. First started in 2014 as series of tumblr posts by panaran, the comic depicts the daily life and simple adventures of Sheldon and his friends (a baby seahorse named William and a tuft of cotton ball with eyes named Puff), and how these Liliputian creatures navigate the world with their diminutive sizes.
Not to be confused with another webcomic starring a protagonist named Sheldon.
The webcomic provides examples of:
- Art Evolution: It's hard to miss how much rounder Sheldon looks now compared to what he looked like at first◊. Lampshaded in this◊ strip, where Sheldon compares his old and new appearances and wonders if he's put on weight.
- Bilingual Bonus: When Sheldon dresses up as Godzilla, the panel has his name written in Japanese katakana characters on the side (シェルドン, Sherudon).
- Black Bead Eyes: Thanks to its simplistic art style, the characters' eyes are simply drawn as dots. This makes the creatures look cuter.
- Fun Size: Sheldon is much smaller than even a baby turtle, let alone an actual dinosaur, but his tiny size is definitely a part of his character's appeal.
- Gender-Blender Name: William Wallace the seahorse is actually female.
- Minimalist Cast: The series only have three regular characters: Sheldon, William and Puff (who is just Sheldon's stuffed toy). But most of the time, only Sheldon is featured in the comics.
- Named After Somebody Famous: Sheldon's best friend is William Wallace, a seahorse named after the Scottish knight.
- Palette Swap: Apparently, there is a bootleg version of Sheldon in the form of Shellman, a diminutive blue saurian who wears a peanut shell instead of an acorn cap.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: All the characters, both named and unnamed, are cute, little critters with Black Bead Eyes that are adorable enough to carry the webcomic despite having pretty much 0 plot.
- Security Blanket: Downplayed. Sheldon has a plushie (actually a tiny tuft of cotton ball he drew eyes on) named Puff, which Sheldon uses for warmth and comfort when he's feeling scared or cold. But while Sheldon often takes Puff around with him, he could live just fine without his toy.
- Shout-Out: Sheldon occasionally encounter characters from other fandoms:
- Befriending Pikmins
- Dressing up as Lapras.
- "Dragon-ing up" as Smaug.
- Cosplaying as Godzilla, whom Sheldon is apparently a Fan Boy of.
- Befriending
- Slice of Life: The comics have no real story or character arc, and they mostly just depict how these tiny creatures make use of the larger-than-life everyday objects they come across. A lot of the site's content aren't even really "comics" as much as they are captioned pictures.
- Your Size May Vary: Sheldon and his friends are tiny, but just how tiny they are might differ between shots. For example, Sheldon looks much bigger when he's sitting on this donut◊ than he did in his thimble fort.
