Datasets:

paul-stansifer

/

qwantz-strips-3550

like 0

if you haven't replaced "pardon my french" with "in my language, it means 'peace'" in your idiolect, there is a chance you are not living your best life

T-Rex: Sally Suckola was a member of an ancient alien race, one powerful enough to be mistaken for gods and wise enough to have outsmarted them. The affairs of Earthlings had long been beneath Sally Suckola and her kind... T-Rex: ...UNTIL NOW. T-Rex: "IT IS I, Sally Suckola", boomed Sally Suckola as she arrived on Planet Earth, a planet which thought itself pretty cool due to all the dinosaurs on it. "BEHOLD". Dromiceiomimus: Wait, the godlike alien is named "Sally Suckola"? T-Rex: Yes. T-Rex: In her language it means "peace". Utahraptor: And in ours it's a name you give to a Sally who sucks real bad!! T-Rex: The name doesn't matter! Utahraptor: Ahem. "Sally Suckola farted, a verb which in her language meant 'to reveal the secrets of the interstellar transport'". Utahraptor: DOES YOUR STORY STILL SOUND RAD, T-REX?? T-Rex: [thinks] "Sally Suckola farted to the UN, carefully, and with infinite care, giving farts to each and every world leader in orderly sequence." T-Rex: ... T-Rex (punchline): ...YES??

THE VALUE OF PREMIUM PLAYBUX™ FLOATS ON THE OPEN MARKET AND CAN BE INFLUENCED BY PEOPLE GRINDING ON THE GAME OVERSEAS WHICH IS BUT ONE OF THE REASONS I NORMALLY ONLY TRADE IN THE MUCH MORE EXCLUSIVE PREMIUM PLAYBUX™ PLATINUM™ X3

Devil: GREETINGS T-REX T-Rex: The Devil!! What do you want with me? Devil: I WOULD LIKE TO DISCUSS IN-GAME TRANSACTIONS T-Rex: Pass! Hard pass! Devil: WHILE SOME SAY THEY ARE WAYS FOR DEVELOPERS TO COMPETE WITH FREE GAMES OTHERS SUGGEST "FREEMIUM" PERKS ARE MERELY GAME-BREAKING PAY-TO-WIN FEATURES DONE TO INCREASE PROFITABILITY AT THE EXPENSE OF NON-PAYING PLAYERS Devil: I'M CURIOUS AS TO YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS VERY IMPORTANT MATTER T-Rex: I guess micropayments in games can be good OR bad? T-Rex: Much like most things? Utahraptor: I don't know. In the hands of an expert I'm sure there could be a version of this that works really well. Pay just 40,000 Premium Playbux™ to unlock the rest of this opinion. T-Rex: Hah! Devil: TELL UTAHRAPTOR I AM MORE THAN HAPPY TO PAY HIS PRICE T-Rex: Nope! Devil: PAY MY WORDS GOOD HEED T-REX Devil (punchline): THE VALUE OF MY PREMIUM PLAYBUX™ RESERVES SHOULD NOT BE UNDERESTIMATED

announcing RyanCoin, the cryptocurrency in which I definitely won't spend all your money, send out an "oops I tried" email, and then shut the whole thing down!!

T-Rex: Great news, the world! I've invented my own cryptocurrency. It's like Bitcoin, only it's branded with ME instead! T-Rex: AN OBJECTIVE AND MARKED IMPROVEMENT. T-Rex: So instead of "bitcoin chains", it's "T-Rex pecs". Instead of "mining for Bitcoin", it's "hangin' with 'The T'". And instead of "a financial instrument that's used as both currency and long-term investment at the same time, making both unpredictable" it's fun and cool to use!! Utahraptor: You studied enough math to build a new cryptocurrency? T-Rex: Pfft. Heck no! T-Rex: I just waited until someone made a templated version anyone can use, then filled in my deets. Smart AND easy! Now you're Hangin' With The T.™ Utahraptor: But that means the world will be flooded with millions of unused cryptocurrencies! T-Rex: Yes! T-Rex (punchline): And mine too!!

later: the world's largest diamond is extremely disappointing, we're all expecting something cartoonishly large, like the size of an extra-large pizza, MINIMUM, but then when you see it you can fit it in your hand and you realize cartoons have ruined us for reality, the end

Off panel: Hear ye, hear ye! Come see the largest diamond in the world! T-Rex: THE WORLD'S LARGEST DIAMOND? T-Rex: Wait... T-Rex: TOWN CRIERS ARE A THING AGAIN?! Dromiceiomimus: Wait, why precisely are town criers back? T-Rex: WHY DID THEY EVER LEAVE, MORE LIKE? Dromiceiomimus: Oh. Well, largely due to a more literate population that allowed information to be distributed in print, a marked improvement over literally hiring a guy to shout it all day long. T-Rex: Fascinating! Utahraptor: Indeed! Utahraptor: And when criers were done shouting, they'd attach their notices to a door post of an inn, from which we get the idea of "posting a notice", which led to newspapers being called "The Post", to sharing information being called "posting", to the HTTP protocol having a "POST" command used billions of times every day!! T-Rex: Hear ye, hear ye! T-Rex (punchline): I've learned many new things and bettered myself a lot but I'm still interested in seeing a giant diamond

please spray me with some of your batdoubt repellent and i will never stray again

T-Rex: One day Batman, who was the best at solving crime, faced the impossible... A CRIME HE COULDN'T SOLVE. T-Rex: Oh snap, we're one sentence in and already there's a stunning twist!! T-Rex: The crime was a minor one: someone had stolen a candy bar from the local convenience store. The criminal, WHOEVER THEY WERE, was careful: they wore a hoodie, left no fingerprints or DNA, quietly slipped the choco into their pocket, and left. The crime hadn't even been noticed until Batman himself reviewed the camera footage a week later as part of a different case, which itself was part of his really justified war on crime! Utahraptor: What was the first case he was investigating? T-Rex: A slight case... OF MURDER. T-Rex: And as the murder was clearly a more pressing case, and as the shopkeep didn't want to press charges, Batman had neither the time, resources, nor the permission to solve the case. It was quite literally the case he couldn't solve, and that's how some snack loving rando beat Batman! Narrator: A FEW SLEEPLESS NIGHTS LATER: T-Rex: I CAN'T DO IT, I CAN'T LIVE A LIE!! LATER ON BATMAN CAUGHT THE CANDY BAR CRIMINAL, BATMAN DEFINITELY CAUGHT HIM T-Rex: I'M SORRY I DOUBTED YOU, BATMAN T-Rex (punchline): I'M SORRY ABOUT EVERYTHING

fun fact!! these ontological arguments have sometimes been applied to lesser, non-batman entities

T-Rex: Does Batman exist? Oh please. PLEASE. He definitely does. And I can prove it, with - Narrator: ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF BATMAN. T-Rex: First off: the world's greatest crimefighter is Batman. Imagine him now. Pretty great, right? But if Batman only existed in your mind, then he's COULDN'T be the greatest crimefighter, because the world's greatest crimefighter would exist both in your imagination AND in real life. Therefore, Batman exists in reality too. That's a Q.E.D., which stands for "Quite Excellent Debate (which is now settled, Batman definitely exists)". Utahraptor: Immanuel Kant would disagree! T-Rex: I kant believe it! Utahraptor: Yeah man. He'd argue that existing adds nothing to perfection (in fact, the messy realities of the world may actually HARM it) therefore the world's most perfect crimefighter isn't made more perfect by existing. T-Rex: No! NO T-Rex: KANT MUST BE DESTROYED Off panel: Of course, Kant would then argue Batman's a being of perfect crimefighting OUTSIDE the realm of our experience, thus there IS no way to verify Batman's existence, forever opening the door that he's out there somewhere. T-Rex (punchline): ...KANT MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS

Things seemed to be going pretty good for me until I realized today's adults were just yesterday's stale babies

T-Rex: Once you get to be 25 and thus TOTALLY AN ADULT, you'll notice that you and your friends are all like "hah hah hah I don't really feel like an adult! Hah hah hah ahhhhhhhh" T-Rex: "Ahhhhh what am I doing with my life ahhh" T-Rex: "I don't understand how my parents were married with children and a house and a dog at this age ahhhhhh all I do is get out of bed and make mistakes ahhhhhhhh speaking of my mistakes I have no idea how to fix them, how do you even adult, how are adults even a thing, why did school teach me how to type but not how to look at my finances without exploding ahhh ahhhh ahhhhhhh" Utahraptor: "All I do is say stupid things by accident and then go to bed and replay all the stupid things I said ahhh" Utahraptor: "Ahhh even worse is the knowledge that I'm not unique and all adults are just OLD BABIES, each fully capable of making incredibly stupid mistakes, including those of us who have been elevated to positions of power where their mistakes could be catastrophic for all life on the planet ahhhhhh AHH AHHHHHHHH" Off panel: ... T-Rex: ... T-Rex and off panel (punchline): #relatable

wait wait wait, if OUR climate change warms up the planet with CO2, and a giant asteroid cools DOWN the planet and makes everything freeze... GUYS, I THINK I JUST CAME UP WITH THE PERFECT SOLUTION??

T-Rex: Climate change! It's terrifying! We could all die!! Narrator: CLIMATE CHANGE COMICS T-Rex: Yes indeed, should the global temperature change by even a few degrees, it could be catastrophic for our civilization!! Forget about the polar ice caps changing - WHICH THEY WILL - and focus on the massive death caused by the Earth's climate becoming actively hostile to our form of life. Yes, mass extinctions are all but guaranteed... T-Rex: ...WHEN A GIANT ASTEROID HITS THE EARTH AND CAUSES CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE!! Utahraptor: Oh, hah hah! Utahraptor: I thought you meant climate change caused by OUR activities! You know: the comparatively slow-moving type that any intelligent species would address before it was apocalyptic? The kind that would turn the entire engine of civilization towards saving the climate, as part of the GREATEST PROJECT EVER UNDERTAKEN ON EARTH? T-Rex: No, I was talking asteroids. Yours sounds like something that's not easily visualized and which can't be defeated simply by launching nukes at it!! Off panel: Hah! It sure is!! Off panel (punchline): I'm CERTAIN that ever won't be a problem though

turns out his full name is "fitzwilliam darcy". i mean his full alias. his full alias that he uses in the books so that nobody will discover he can shoot knives out of his eyes but only when he really wants it

T-Rex: When you create an original character, you can make that person ANYTHING YOU WANT. You've got a complete blank slate! T-Rex: So why not create the BEST and MOST COMPELLING character of all time, huh?? T-Rex: I don't know why not, so here's how to do that. First off, they'll need to have an amazing name. Think less "Mr. Darcy" (SNOOZE) and more "Deathskull Knifeeyes III"! Dromiceiomimus: Ooh, Deathskull Knifeeyes III! Every character, INCLUDING MR. DARCY, is improved by such a name! T-Rex: Right? Utahraptor: And they should have super powers too, because including them is free! T-Rex: WHY WOULDN'T YOU? T-Rex: For example: flight, invincibility, knives shooting out of his eyes but only when he really wants it, and a universal translator. We know NOTHING ELSE about Deathskull Knifeeyes, and yet, I'm already super into this character! Utahraptor: What's his origin? T-Rex: I CAN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT!! Narrator: LATER, T-REX READS "PRIDE AND PREJUDICE" AND ASSUMES MR. DARCY HAS THIS NAME AND ALL OF THESE POWERS, BUT IS SIMPLY ELECTING NOT TO USE THEM: T-Rex: It's - T-Rex (punchline): IT'S SO GOOD AND JANE AUSTEN WAS A GENIUS

the trials of the flesh include Why I Gotta Sleep All The Time; Food Makes Me Happy But If I Eat Too Much I'll Die, So What The Heck; and How Come I Can't Fully Control When Toots Come Out, This Is A Problem And People Are Starting To Talk

T-Rex: Raise your hand if you've ever wanted to live on another world! T-Rex: This is me raising my hands! This is as high as they go!! T-Rex: Well, SORRY EVERYONE. Lower them hands down, because it turns out that OUR generation is the one that designs the tech and builds the rockets. Dromiceiomimus: And then our CHILDREN get to live on Mars? T-Rex: Maybe! Utahraptor: Nah, our children are the ones who maybe get to visit briefly. T-Rex: But THEIR children live there? Utahraptor: Again, no: their children get to either do terraforming to make Mars habitable, or they get to convince themselves that sending robots is just as good, and they're not missing out on anything by staying home. T-Rex: Okay, but THEIR children get to live on Mars, yeah? Off panel: Their children get to upload their brains into robot bodies and forever escape the trials of the flesh, yes. T-Rex: FRIG, THAT SOUNDS GREAT T-Rex (punchline): THIS IS ME DEFINITELY RAISING MY HANDS SLIGHTLY HIGHER THAN BEFORE

Should you find yourself in similar circumstances, Dromiceiomimus's line in panel six can easily be deployed in real life with only slight modifications on the name: my gift to you

T-Rex: Here is my objectively correct list of... The 18 People To Meet Before You Die! T-Rex: #1 - me! T-Rex: So y'all are doing ALRIGHT so far. Dromiceiomimus: Can #2 be me? T-Rex: Sure! And #3 is our mutual friend Utahraptor! Dromiceiomimus: Oh, I think he's on his way here now. I'll be right back! Utahraptor: Hey, where'd Dromiceiomimus go? T-Rex: She said she'd be right back! Utahraptor: Well, I'll wait. So who are the other people to meet before death? T-Rex: Oh! God, The Devil, Jacques Esqueleto, Skeletony Danza, Morris, Amelia, your local librarians, the personification of indolence, and me again. Utahraptor: Ah. Off panel: Hey, it's me, Dromiceiomimus! T-Rex: Aw, you just missed Utahraptor again! Like you do... every time, actually? Off panel: Hah! What a crazy idea, to suggest Utahraptor has always been just me in a costume trying to fool you!! T-Rex (punchline): Uh

what does L.E.A.R. stand for? ah, that's a story for another time (i'm just kidding, it's a story for right now, it stands for "Logically Evil Automatic Robotman")

T-Rex: Everyone thinks Shakespeare was SO SMART and THE GREATEST WRITER EVER, but guess what? I'm here to put the final nail in the coffin of THAT particular idea! T-Rex: The dude made tons of mistakes! Objective mistakes! T-Rex: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"? INCORRECT. The names things are given matter, which is why corporations spend millions on branding! Would you rather fly "economy class" or "big ol' losers who smell" class? MOST WOULD CHOSE THE FORMER, even if they're identical, and EVEN IF smelly loser class gives you a free wet nap! SHAKESPEARE SCREWED UP, yo! Utahraptor: He was using figurative language! T-Rex: Doesn't make it accurate! Utahraptor: You know what? FINE. I'll admit that Shakespeare, a man writing FICTION hundreds of years ago, may not have been 100% accurate to reality 100% of the time. T-Rex: THANK you. T-Rex: Now admit that King Lear would've been better if he was a giant robot named King L.E.A.R.! Off panel: AGAIN, AND FOR THE LAST TIME Off panel (punchline): I WILL NOT

sorry history buffs but everything you like is suckier versions of the stuff we have here in the present, and again, i must say that i'm very sorry to own you so early in the morning

T-Rex: Does anyone remember... T-Rex: THE NINETIES?? Dromiceiomimus: I remember the 90s, T-Rex. Too often for comfort. T-Rex: Okay, fair enough! But does anyone remember... THE EIGHTIES?? Dromiceiomimus: I remember those as well! I CAN'T FORGET. T-Rex: What about the 70s? Utahraptor: I've researched the era, yep! T-Rex: 60s? Utahraptor: Yep. T-Rex: 50s? Utahraptor: Holla. T-Rex: 40s? Utahraptor: That decade has some notoriety among war buffs, yeah. Narrator: MUCH LATER: T-Rex: Alright. Does anyone remember.. the 4490s BCE?? Off panel: I can't name a single thing that for sure happened in that decade, no. T-Rex (punchline): Me neither; the past is a foreign country and we should never visit it, everything sucks there

DON'T TELL ME A ROOMBA IS A ROBOT AND SO THEREFORE WE HAVE ROBOTS, for god's sake we live in a world where people call two-wheeled land-based scooters "hoverboards", STOP LOWERING OUR EXPECTATIONS

T-Rex: Flying cars? Pfft. There's lots of good reasons why we don't want to give non-professional drivers the ability to CRASH OUT OF THE SKY INTO ANYTHING EVER. T-Rex: But where are my robot horses? T-Rex: I DISTINCTLY RECALL a period in history when the future was going to give us robots. Robot horses to pull our wagons! Robot butlers to do our buttling! And yet, though we live in a fantastic world in which anyone ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET can use a reasonably affordable pocket-sized device to send me a spam text at 3am, we still have no robots! Utahraptor: It's because it's hard to get robots to stand. T-Rex: Oh. Utahraptor: Yeah. I know you had a good rant going there, but it turns out the things we thought were hard (math and chess) were actually PRETTY EASY to get computers to do, and the things we thought were easy (understanding language, recognizing objects, not falling over all the time) are actually really hard. Off panel: We ASSUMED they were easy because we don't have to think about them, but that's because our bodies do them for free! T-Rex: This interesting fact about biological life is distracting me from my rant!! T-Rex (punchline): And I welcome it; my "where are my robots" take wasn't NEARLY hot enough

earlier: "wow, that guy looks a lot like einstein! hah! almost like einstein travelled from his time forward to our present! hah hah! HEY WAIT A MINUTE"

T-Rex: Albert Einstein: scientist, physicist, and... T-Rex: ...SECRET TIME TRAVELLER?? T-Rex: Who can say? Secret time travellers are by their nature incredibly secret, and also impossible to detect, because if you DO detect them then they'll go back in time to make sure you don't do that anymore. Therefore, like all things that are unprovable, this theory could TECHNICALLY be true!! Utahraptor: But the fact you're saying it proves it's false. T-Rex: How so? Utahraptor: Because if it WERE true, Einstein would want to keep his secret, so by your own logic he'd travel through time to prevent you from revealing it. Therefore, by definition, anyone you can credibly claim is a secret time traveller... isn't! T-Rex: GAAAASP Narrator: THAT EVENING, T-REX SPEAKS INTO THE DARKNESS: T-Rex: Einstein! Are you there? Your secret is safe with me! T-Rex (punchline): PRIMARILY DUE TO YOUR GODLIKE COMMAND OF TIME AND SPACE??

so all cool teens know "wtf" stands for "what the fuck", but my good friend thought "ftw" stood for "fuck the what"!! this is now officially what it stands for and it's the new best acronym ftw. ftaw.

T-Rex: Parents! Are you wondering what your tweens are texting? Are you certain that "WTF" stands for "wow, that's fresh" and not something... MORE SINISTER? T-Rex: Of course you are! Holy crap! T-Rex: You're the first generation in HISTORY that has to raise children who have instant access to ALL KNOWLEDGE EVERYWHERE. There's no precedent for this! Any question your kids have can be answered by a WEIRD AND POSSIBLY MISINFORMED STRANGER ON THE INTERNET, and it can happen without you EVEN KNOWING. What are you gonna do - put parental controls on the internet and hope for the best? Utahraptor: I figure they're gonna put parental controls on the internet and hope for the best! T-Rex: Sure! T-Rex: It's not like there's open wifi spots EVERYWHERE, right?? Anyway, parents, I wish I had some answers for you, but you're in completely new territory, and we'll only find out if you made the right choices if in 20 years your kids haven't grown up to be complete insane-os. T-Rex: Anyway! There's no going back now, parents! T-Rex (punchline): Plus "WTF" actually has a pretty bad swear in it and I don't think there's anything any of us can do about that either!!

PARENTS: i know this must be a new experience for you, but i am a stranger with some unsolicited child-rearing opinions

T-Rex: Parents! You may be prepared to talk to your teens about sex and their changing bodies, but do you know how to talk to your teens... T-Rex: ...about INFINITE SERIES? T-Rex: There will come a time when your child, for entirely natural reasons, will start to be curious about sex, their changing bodies, and what happens when you add infinitely many numbers to a given starting quantity. They may even, in private, start to experiment with both their bodies and with examining what it means when a sequence of partial sums converges onto a single value! T-Rex: Remember: it's normal, you did this too, and there's nothing shameful about it. Utahraptor: Absolutely! Utahraptor: What's important is they experiment safely. Let them know that they can come to you with any questions about sexuality, consent, or if Euler's number can be described by the sum of an infinite harmonic series and if not, why not. They should know you're here to help, without shame or judgment. Relax, listen, and encourage! T-Rex (punchline): Frank talk about infinite series may embarrass you, but your teens will know they can come to you with anything. They'll grow into wonderful and complete people, fully comfortable with who they are, what they want, and why the Leibniz formula for pi converges in sublinear time.

thanks moms!!

T-Rex: Moms! Are you completely overwhelmed at the realization that there's no restriction to becoming a mom beyond "having the right bits at the right time"?? T-Rex: Are you imagining a world in which women only get pregnant if they really really want to? T-Rex: Are you getting completely absorbed in this idea, wondering what history would look like if a successful pregnancy required both sperm and an egg, but also the enthusiastic and ongoing consent of the mother? Does your mind boggle, moms, at how society would change under these circumstances, and that's even before you realize its people would try to police not only women's bodies, but also their MINDS?? Utahraptor: Is your vision of this utopia quickly becoming a dystopic nightmare?? T-Rex: IS THIS WHAT HAPPENS NOW? Utahraptor: And who's to say it ends at birth? What if kids needed to keep their moms happy until their 18th birthday lest they be destroyed by a mere thought? Is this what you're thinking, moms, as your kids run around, smelling like poop because they're still learning to wipe their bums but aren't good at it yet?? T-Rex (punchline): Moms you have been staring off into space for too long and now must return to reality; we'll catch up on you later!!

don't act like you're not doing a password recovery on your myspace account as we speak just so you can post about it, and especially don't act like you're seeing if you can single-handedly bring back friendster and orkut just to holler about my fic

T-Rex: Everyone loves a good fantasy epic! Whether it involves gaming and thrones OR lording over rings, people just can't get enough of that stuff! T-Rex: So anyway here's mine! T-Rex: Data (from Star Trek) looked impassively at the readouts on his PADD. His gaze was unemotional and robotic, only he wasn't a robot, he was an android, so technically his gaze was androidic instead. His best friend Geordi (blind but can still see anyway, basically Daredevil in space) (he fights less though because he's too busy engineering) also was there. They loved adventure and each other. Utahraptor: That's not fantasy, that's science fiction! T-Rex: It's MY fantasy! Utahraptor: There's none of the defining tropes of the genre!! T-Rex: I'm pushing it forward! Utahraptor: There's an obsession with tech instead of magic! T-Rex: IT'S SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED! Utahraptor: YOU'RE USING COPYRIGHTED CHARACTERS! T-Rex: A FUNDAMENTAL PART OF MY FANTASY IS IF I REALLY LIKE A CHARACTER THEN COPYRIGHT LAW DOESN'T APPLY TO ME!! T-Rex (punchline): ...Anyway Data and Geordi make out really tastefully in my story so don't act like you're not already rating it 5 stars on every social network you can find

YOU'RE WRITING A 200,000 WORD+ FANTASY EPIC AND COULDN'T FIND ROOM FOR EVEN ONE IN-DEPTH EXPLORATION OF ENT REPRODUCTIVE MORPHOLOGY? COME ON. COME THE FRIG ON.

T-Rex: Everyone loves a good science fiction epic! Whether it's a war involving the stars, or a trek involving the stars, people just can't get enough of that stuff! T-Rex: So anyway here's mine! T-Rex: Blurrg (orc, basically race of ugly bullies) adjusted the orbital velocity of the XJ-25545 prototype he and his crew had stolen. A'hrarka (night elf, aloof, good at archery but only if it's night) scanned for nearby interceptors. And to her right, D'anny The Bold (dragon/mermaid hybrid, long story, not as interesting as it should be) armed the transphotonic cannons. If the law caught up with them, they might get taken... but it wouldn't be ALIVE. Utahraptor: This seems like pretty fantasy-inspired scifi, my dude! T-Rex: Because I JUST FIXED FANTASY. T-Rex: Turns out all fantasy needed was to put its characters both in space AND a hard science context! Of course, it also needed to finally explore the reproductive morphology of the Ent tree people because MAN that's got to be complicated, but I'm still doing research for that. T-Rex: But DID YOU KNOW one plant generation reproduces with asexual spores, while the next gen of the SAME SPECIES produces egg and sperm cells, sometimes in the same flower?? Off panel: What the hell, that's awesome! T-Rex: I KNOW T-Rex (punchline): FANTASY AUTHORS NEED TO STOP SLEEPING ON THIS

save time by just saying "you know i can't put a pin in that, it checks and mates what it checks and mates"

T-Rex: Conversations taking up too much of your mental bandwidth? Worried about saying the wrong thing? Sounds like you need some... Narrator: ALL-PURPOSE RESPONSES IN CONVERSATIONS Narrator: "IT IS WHAT IT IS": Dromiceiomimus: But that's a straight tautology that says literally nothing! You might as well say "bad things are bad" or "one equals one"! T-Rex: It is what it is, Dromiceiomimus. Dromiceiomimus: ...OH DANG, HOW DID THAT WORK?? Narrator: "YOU KNOW I CAN'T TALK ABOUT THAT": Utahraptor: Why does that sound SO mysterious? T-Rex: You know I can't talk about that! Narrator: "LET'S PUT A PIN IN THAT": T-Rex: It says "I don't want to talk about this anymore", but does it using a cute metaphor involving tiny stabbing weapons! Utahraptor: They're not meant to be weapons, T-Rex. T-Rex: Excuse me, when did pins get Iron Gianted?? Narrator: "CHECK AND MATE": Off panel: That only works if you're some sort of evil Bond villain. T-Rex: Check and mate, Utahraptor. Off panel: ... Off panel (punchline): ..Okay, wow, I now understand just saying it elevates you to their level and my life will never be the same??

a cake left over from one of Batman's previous adventures, or the Riddler's own cake? My answer: they each had their own giant cake and the Riddler was, eventually, punched into both

T-Rex: Batman scowled, which matched the permanent scowl he'd had molded onto the front of his mask. The Riddler was back once again with the ill behaviour. And it was up to Batman to stop him! Narrator: COMICS WITH A NICE CAKE IN THE LAST PANEL "our promise to you" T-Rex: The riddle left for him by the Riddler read as follows: "when is a country like a state"? Dromiceiomimus: Huh? T-Rex: That's what Batman said. Aren't countries states already? Utahraptor: Maybe it's more like a state of mind. T-Rex: Possible, but way too open! T-Rex: In fact, the more Batman pondered it, the more he realized that MOST riddles admitted more than one solution, and the "correct" answer often had only the fact that the questioner thought of it to recommend it. The mind can find tons of connections between two disparate objects!! RIDDLES ARE FAKE AND BAD! T-Rex: Instead of answering the riddle Batman punched the Riddler into a giant nice cake, left over from one of his previous adventures. T-Rex and off panel (punchline): Yaaaaay

variety is the spice of life, but it's not the objectively best spice, which has also been discovered and, through its discovery, ruined

T-Rex: One day a genius composer - let's just call him "T-Rex" and get it over with - wrote a new song. Narrator: THE OBJECTIVELY BEST SONG IN THE WORLD T-Rex: This song was amazing: everyone loved it. Other artists tried to improve it, of course, but every change they attempted only made the song slightly worse! Before long even the most talented composers had to agree: the best song had, at last, been achieved. There were still some blank spots to fill in on the map of music, sure, but those places were worse. There was, at last, nowhere to go but down. Utahraptor: So what did the regular people do? T-Rex: They listened to the song, obvs! T-Rex: And they loved it, but eventually it got old. Knowing you'd heard the world's best song - and it wasn't THAT great anymore - made people kinda lose interest in music. Instead they got big into arts that hadn't been solved, like cooking! But then a chef invented objectively the best meal. T-Rex: Of course, it ruined both itself AND other meals for everyone, and food became a joyless chore. THE END. Off panel: How come your stories keep being dystopias? T-Rex: MY DUDE T-Rex (punchline): I WISH I KNEW

the fifty moves rule is for COWARDS who don't have the CONFIDENCE to look ahead and see something AMAZING will happen in 496 moves

T-Rex: I love it when you play chess and you get to say something like "mate in 3". I'm using the rhetorical "you" there, of course! T-Rex: I'm real bad at chess!! T-Rex: But it's so KICK-ASS AWESOME to be able to sit there and say to your opponent "You may not see it yet, but no matter what you do, and EVEN IF you play optimally, I can force you to lose in the next 3 moves". Damn. I'm getting excited just thinking about it. Dromiceiomimus: What if instead of "mate in 3", it was "mate in 4"? T-Rex: FRIG, THAT'S EVEN BETTER! Utahraptor: What about mate in... 10? T-Rex: AAHH SO GREAT! T-Rex: Imagine the confidence of seeing 10 moves ahead, and knowing that you've ALREADY WON. Then a quiet little "mate in 10" to let your opponent know they're playing - AND HAVE ALREADY LOST - against a SUPER GENIUS. Hot damn, dude. Mate in 10. Narrator: LATER T-REX DISCOVERS THERE'S A "MATE IN 546" BOARD SETUP WHICH FORCES A CHECKMATE IN 546 MOVES NO MATTER WHAT THE OPPONENT DOES: T-Rex: DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA* Narrator (punchline): THAT WAS GONNA BE A REALLY LONG "DAAAAMN" BUT HIS MIND EXPLODED

ryan this comic makes a LOT of assumptions about dinosaur diaper habits that i'm not 100% certain are supported by the available research

T-Rex: Babies learn a lot of stuff pretty quickly! They're just going through life, minding their own business, when suddenly it's like... T-Rex: "Wait... THINGS STILL EXIST EVEN WHEN I'M NOT LOOKING AT THEM??" T-Rex: And bam: object permanence. And as adults we think "Pfft, I walk around all day knowing that things exist even when I don't look at them and it's no big deal for me", but that's only because we've forgotten - BLISSFULLY FORGOTTEN - the dizzying, terrifying implications we were forced to grapple with when we first discovered object permanence!! Utahraptor: It doesn't sound like that hard a concept. T-Rex: But the implications! THE IMPLICATIONS. T-Rex: If objects exist when you're not looking at them, then the entire universe has a life outside of you. And in that instant, alone, prelinguistic, each child becomes their own Galileo, concluding that despite all emotional evidence to the contrary, they're NOT at the center of the universe. T-Rex: Plus this all happens around 12 months of age! Imagine on the day you discover you're NOT the most important thing in the universe, you're also pooping your pants and crawling around in a dirty diaper for at least a little while! T-Rex (punchline): AND WE WONDER WHY BABIES CRY "FOR NO REASON"

THEY'RE PRETTY IMPORTANT TO ME IS THE THING

God: T-REX IT'S ME GOD T-Rex: Hey man, what's up?! God: OH NOT MUCH SAME OLD SAME OLD CAN'T COMPLAIN T-Rex: Great! God: SO HEY ANYTHING INTERESTING HAPPENING DOWN HERE T-Rex: Oh, neat! You said "down here", incorporating the metaphor that "up = good" and "down = bad"! This idea holds true even across unrelated cultures, suggesting that it might be something intrinsic to us, and perhaps, one of the few things that everyone has in common no matter where or when they were raised! God: I'LL TAKE THAT AS A NO Utahraptor: Hey man, what's up? T-Rex: Just discussing metaphors! T-Rex: The ol' "good is up and bad is down" idea, which we see all over the place in phrases like "boosted my spirits", "peak of health", "fell from grace", "underhanded" and even, arguably, "high quality"! Utahraptor: Ah. Okay. Well, I'm late for an appointment. Later! God: T-REX THERE ARE BILLIONS OF SOULS ON EARTH TO CHAT UP AND YET I'M HERE WITH YOU TALKING ABOUT METAPHORS T-Rex: Does that have you feeling... DOWN?? God: T-REX God (punchline): CAN WE NOT JOKE ABOUT MY FEELINGS PLEASE

later: sorry for what i did in the bathroom, society

T-Rex: Ah yes, another beautiful day to share some of my most edgy and controversial opinions!! Hope you're ready for some MANDATORY DISCOURSE, because (and here I'm picking an opinion completely at random...) T-Rex: ...THAT THING DROMICEIOMIMUS LIKES IS NOT VERY GOOD!! Dromiceiomimus: Well... okay! Fair enough, T-Rex! T-Rex: You're not shocked at my EDGY opinions? Dromiceiomimus: Man, I don't mind if you don't like it. I can like a thing even if someone else doesn't like the thing. Mostly I'm just disappointed that you'd go out of your way to ensure I know you don't like it though. Seems rude. T-Rex: Aw dang! Utahraptor: You messed up, T-Rex! Utahraptor: You mistook rudeness for edginess, alienating one of your closest pals! T-Rex: I mean, I haven't ALIENATED her. I was rude, yes, but the joy of polite society is that I'll be able to examine where I went wrong, learn from it, honestly apologize to her, and we'll all move past this... TOGETHER. Banner: NICE MANNERS T-Rex: They help us tolerate living in close quarters without raging on each other all the time! T-Rex (punchline): Thanks, society!

YOU HAVE NOW GONE - 0 - DAYS SINCE LAST THINKING ABOUT SMALLPOX

T-Rex: Smallpox! It's a horrible disease, but it's one of the few which, through decades of work, we've managed to eradicate worldwide! Great work, scientists! No greater act of love has ever been done in medicine! T-Rex: Yep! NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG NOW! Dromiceiomimus: Actually, T-Rex, while it COULD'VE been eradicated in the 70s, scientists then kept some in cold storage, just in case it would ever be useful in the future. So it's still around. T-Rex: Oh. Dromiceiomimus: Aaaand that's assuming all nations are being honest when they say they haven't kept any samples for themselves, which is almost certainly not the case. Utahraptor: Plus it's ignoring extant smallpox scabs, like those found pressed in the pages of a book in the 2000s! T-Rex: Oh. Utahraptor: Not to mention the smallpox vials found in an old FDA storage room just a few years ago. And even if it WERE extinct, scientists THIS VERY YEAR synthesized extinct horsepox with mail-order DNA fragments. Recreating smallpox would be just as easy. T-Rex: I see. T-Rex: Welp, instead of "nothing could possibly go wrong now", which sets me up for ironic comeuppance FULLY 100% OF THE TIME, now I'll only say "some things could very easily go wrong now!" Off panel: Do you think it'll help? T-Rex (punchline): I won't lie, some things could very easily go wrong now

plus rotational speed! don't forget about Earth's rotational speed! and, if I may be so bold: whooooooooosh

Narrator: DINOSAUR COMICS ASKS: Narrator: what's the fastest you've ever travelled? T-Rex: However fast a plane goes! 1000 million kilometers an hour?? Narrator: AFTER SOME BRIEF RESEARCH: T-Rex: Okay, no, 925 km/h. Still pretty fast! Dromiceiomimus: Did you sit still during the flight? If you walked in the direction of travel, that'd increase your speed even more. T-Rex: Oh heck, I did! 925 km/h plus my average walking speed, babies! Utahraptor: Well, the Earth itself is orbiting around the sun, so assuming you were travelling in the same direction... T-Rex: Oh SNAP! T-Rex: So that's, what, my 30 km per SECOND orbital speed plus aircraft speed plus my strollin' speed? Utahraptor: Well, the sun itself is moving, in a galaxy that's moving, in a universe that may well be moving, so... T-Rex: So I'm moving at speeds SO FAST and complicated they're BEYOND MEASURE? Off panel: I mean, you don't want to say THAT, but - T-Rex: WHOOOOOSH Off panel: Plus, I'd caution you not to - T-Rex: YES HELLO T-Rex (punchline): I STAND BY MY EARLIER STATEMENT OF "WHOOOOOSH"

it is with the utmost regret that we inform you: some dreams be horny

T-Rex: Scientists, along with even a cursory examination of how you spend your time, will both tell you the same thing: you will spend almost one third of your life asleep! Doesn't that sound... T-Rex: ...FRIGGIN' GREAT?? T-Rex: We get to spend ONE THIRD of our time in a hopefully nice bed, eyes closed, just relaxing. We have SO MANY OPPORTUNITIES to drift off while reading a nice book, to fall asleep while listening to wonderful music, or to get sleepy while watching a video on our phones and then we drop the phones and hit ourselves in the face with our phones. Utahraptor: And this doesn't even include dreaming! T-Rex: RIGHT? T-Rex: If we didn't dream and aliens were like "What up, on our world we spend a third of our life imagining new ways to be where we're freed from all laws of physics and which are utterly convincing until the second we wake", we'd freak out! They sound like enlightened SUPER GENIUSES instead of just horny dreamers. T-Rex: Oh, that's right, I forgot to mention the best part! T-Rex: SOME DREAMS? T-Rex (punchline): KINDA HORNY

IN THE RACES OF MARIO'S KART I FIND THE TRUE ENEMY IS THE RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR RESPONSIBLE FOR MY RELENTLESS PAUCITY OF RED TURTLE'S SHELLS

T-Rex: Are you interested in competing - AND WINNING - in the races of Mario's Kart? Good news, hotshot, because I've got some Narrator: PRIMO MARIO KART TIPS T-Rex: TIP ONE: always select the best kart. You may wish to select an inferior kart; this is an error. Dromiceiomimus: TIP TWO: race as quickly as possible around the track! Racers who go slowly are unlikely to win. T-Rex: TIP THREE: avoid obstacles! Some obstacles can't be avoided, but others can, so try to avoid those ones. Utahraptor: I've followed all these tips! T-Rex: Yes? And?? Utahraptor: And I've realized that there's an inherent element of complexity leading to non-determinism in most games, otherwise the favourite would win every time. Therefore I have given up on valuing myself via performance in Mario Kart, and will instead value myself by my INTRINSIC traits and features! T-Rex: Man, that is EXACTLY what someone who can't win at Mario Kart would say. Devil (punchline): RIGHT

and yet... i didn't say stop

T-Rex: People who nearly die often report a clarity afterwards: after having faced their own mortality and survived, they have a new focus and drive in the world, and petty irrelevancies fall away! T-Rex: As a guy who sometimes has trouble getting up in the morning, THIS SOUNDS GREAT. T-Rex: Sign ME up for some clarity, please!! The catch is, of course, that I need to nearly die for it to happen. And it has to be a REAL near-death, otherwise I'll never undergo that life-altering change in perception available only to those who have survived the crucible or whatever. T-Rex: Oh well!! Utahraptor: But T-Rex, you're having near-death experiences constantly! T-Rex: Explain! Utahraptor: Maybe lying in bed a bit longer kept you from a traffic accident! Maybe napping in the shower prevented you from having the time to make breakfast, AND THEN CHOKING ON IT! The very fact you're here is a testament to how you've avoided these deaths! You're a walking, talking, best case scenario!! Narrator: AND SO: T-Rex: Yeah, but what if NOT eating this whole thing of ice cream is what kills me?! Riddle me that, DOCTOR. Off panel: T-Rex Off panel (punchline): This isn't what house calls are supposed to be

that last sentence was the most true thing t-rex had said all week, and it's only wednesday. the end.

Narrator: WHAT'S YOUR LEAST FAVOURITE WORD IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE? T-Rex: Nobody say "moist"! Moist is the Comic Sans of unpopular words! T-Rex: And yes, Comic Sans is the moist of typefaces! T-Rex: PERSONALLY, I hate "collectible". Technically it says nothing beyond "THIS HAS THE ABILITY TO BE COLLECTED" which is patently true of EVERYTHING, even unique things! But what it's REALLY saying is "this was created for no purpose except to be owned by someone, and I want you to buy it". Eugh! Angries up the blood just thinking about it! Utahraptor: Hey T-Rex, on a new subject, I saw the Mona Lisa last week! T-Rex: Oh wow! How was it? Utahraptor: AMAZING. I got to see one of the most famous paintings in the world! It truly was, and is, a great... T-Rex: please say "work of art" please say "work of art" Utahraptor: COLLECTIBLE. T-Rex: Noooooo Off panel: And before you say "art isn't a collectible", I will say the Louvre thought otherwise, when they added it to their COLLECTION. T-Rex: Wow!! T-Rex (punchline): The world would be way easier if other people's OPINIONS weren't so INCORRECT all the time

I tried to write this comic "me in 2005 style". I think I succeeded?? Curses

T-Rex: A new ice cream store opened down the street from me! THIS IS AMAZING, and I can't wait to tell Dromiceiomimus! DROMICEIOMIMUS! WHERE ARE YOU? T-Rex: I HAVE EXCITING NEWS ABOUT ICE CREAM! T-Rex: DROMICEIOOOOO-- T-Rex: Oh! There you are. A new ice cream store opened down the street from me! Dromiceiomimus: Well? What are we waiting for? LET'S GO EAT SOME! I'll lead the way back to your house - follow me! Off panel: T-Rex, if you think I'm gonna wait for you to step on a tiny woman, you're wrong! ICE CREAM OWNS MY HEART Utahraptor: Ice cream? T-Rex: Yeah dude, just down the street from me! I CAN NOW GET ICE CREAM WHENEVER I WANT! See, THIS is why civilization is worth it. Wait long enough, and EVENTUALLY one of your neighbours will specialize in making ice cream. Utahraptor: Well shoot, what ARE we waiting for? Let's go, follow me!! T-Rex: Utahraptor, wait! The ice cream is at the other end of the street! You're going the wrong way!! Off panel (punchline): Curses

carrots? WITH 0.5 CUBIC CENTIMETERS OF LOW-FAT DIP ON EACH?? WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO

Narrator: T-REX CONTINUES TO EAT TOO MUCH ICE CREAM T-Rex: Luckily, I look practically identical! Any changes to my body have been REMARKABLY unnoticeable! T-Rex: HAH HAH HAH! T-Rex: SUCCESS T-Rex: You know how the X-Men discover their mutant powers at puberty? MAYBE THIS IS MINE! I have the mutant power to eat ice cream to excess and still be a reasonably healthy dude who doesn't gain ANY weight! THIS IS AMAZING! Dromiceiomimus: Aren't the X-Men fictional? T-Rex: Maybe, but they're a real metaphor for DISCRIMINATION, Dromiceiomimus. Utahraptor: So you're saying your overeating is... a metaphor for discrimination? T-Rex: No! T-Rex: All I'm saying is I've been eating like a slob for 3 days and things have been great, so therefore, BY MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION, I'ma be great forever. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off for lunch: MORE ICE CREAM. Utahraptor: It was nice knowing you, friend!! Narrator: SEVERAL WEEKS LATER: T-Rex: There! Now I've worked off the excess weight I gained from eating poorly a while back, giving my whole "ice cream arc" a solid IF UNSATISFYING conclusion. Time to celebrate in moderation! T-Rex (punchline): WHO WANTS A SMALL HANDFUL OF CARROTS??

i dream of it each night, and when i wake, i weep for what might have been in that poor, hypothetical mortal universe. also there's no parachutes which makes it even more awesome. obviously there's no parachutes

Narrator: MEANWHILE, IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE EVERYONE IS MORTAL (AS IMAGINED FROM THE IMMORTAL UNIVERSE): T-Rex: I can die at any time! Hah hah hah ha-- T-Rex: ahhhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Dromiceiomimus: T-Rex, did you know that the fact that my entire life could end AT ANY MINUTE FOR NO REASON fills me with a constant state of dread, leading to a paralysis that leads me to always choose the safest option? It's how come I only leave the house wearing this tan-coloured body armour! T-Rex: And I'm in my lime green and oddly wrinkly body armour! Utahraptor: Doesn't the fact of your own mortality fill you with an urge to "live every day to the fullest"? T-Rex: Hah! T-Rex: That my friend is a recipe for early death. No, much better to live each day to the SAFEST, thereby ensuring more days, which, over the course of a short mortal life, amortize to more fullness per day than a handful of dangerous days spent skydiving, gunfighting, or skydiving while gunfighting. T-Rex: ...which, incidentally, is a truly great sport that only the immortal can enjoy more than once. Off panel: Agreed Off panel (punchline): I- I think about it constantly

i mean, to be fair, shakespeare said a lot of things

T-Rex: Ah, things sure are great here, in the REGULAR UNIVERSE where people can die, but only once! T-Rex: Where you can't die any other amount of times, such as zero or more than one! Dromiceiomimus: I mean, to be fair, Shakespeare said cowards die many times before their actual death. T-Rex: Metaphors. Dromiceiomimus: And the French call orgasms "la petite mort", meaning "the little death". T-Rex: Also metaphors. Plus, God, could anything be more French? Utahraptor: The answer: no. T-Rex: THANK you. T-Rex: Anyway, all I want to say is I sure do enjoy only dying once, but not for a little while, or hopefully a long while, but not TOO long since after a certain age your body stops getting better and just gets a little bit worse every single day. Utahraptor: Hah! It certainly does!! Narrator: THE END Narrator: HAPPY WEDNESDAY FROM EVERYONE HERE AT QWANTZ.COM Narrator: WELL, REALLY IT'S JUST ME Narrator: ANYWAY Narrator (punchline): I DON'T KNOW WHY THIS COMIC IS SO DARK, I'M DOING FINE AND I HOPE YOU ARE TOO

TO ABSENT FRIENDS, AND THE MEALS THEY PREPURCHASED FOR US

T-Rex: Remember 10 years ago when we all agreed to meet up in a pub in 10 years? Remember how we all agreed this ONE APPOINTMENT would be an element of continuity in our otherwise unpredictable lives? Well 10 years have passed, baby! T-Rex: IT'S TIME TO MEET UP IN THAT PUB!! Dromiceiomimus: Hey, T-Rex? That pub date was a MONTH ago. T-Rex: What? WHAT?! Dromiceiomimus: Yeah. Me and Utahraptor were there. On the right date, I mean. Just us at a table, all alone, thinkin' about our lives. T-Rex: No! NO. Utahraptor: We pretended your chair was empty because you'd died, just like we'd agreed! T-Rex: Nooooo Utahraptor: And when we left, I told the staff that some day in the future, a crazy wild-eyed T-Rex might show up asking about us. And if that ever happens... T-Rex: ...yes? Utahraptor: ...then to send you an order of chicken wings that we prepaid for! Narrator: T-REX RUSHES OVER TO THE PUB: Off panel: Here's your free chicken wings, sir! T-Rex: OH T-Rex: OH YES T-Rex (punchline): LET'S DO THIS EVERY TEN YEARS

his whole thing was NOT travelling faster than light, how can you --- you know what? nevermind. NEVER YOU EVER MIND.

T-Rex: You've heard of the Justice League, but have you heard of the Justice League... of SCIENCE?? T-Rex: Albert Einstein! Marie Curie! Stephen Hawking! Others! Dromiceiomimus: Together they fight crime? T-Rex: No! That's a waste of resources and concussions are serious business. Together they discover fundamental properties of the universe! Utahraptor: Can they at least fight a little crime? T-Rex: The crime of ignorance? YES! Utahraptor: No, like, the crime of robbing banks. The crime of murder clowns poisoning the water supply. T-Rex: They're scientists, Utahraptor. MAYBE they could make a citizen's arrest, if the legal system permitted it. The REAL adventure is science! Narrator: LATER: T-Rex: FINE. If I allow Curie to fire radiation out of her hands will you be interested? Off panel: Can Einstein travel faster than light? T-Rex (punchline): *sigh*

ANYWAY THE ANSWER WAS 7.00000004845843935387812225750045150311873140792975168770856834698550488309023198119685390805472737694257119415852544123663389822457328906867954878879140215624239120269802520829933208821143111391720016980471426333927555484733438991119554062399861882598663019254329012119602682521954456549959675699555648878720697324397037785154604441712094452728036804666662888026387569261213832558107659077667564926386218037702534325293847565363991157894209166365656326260388791265605521323987813986683582398886429641412442331869123733940267224590739011421969986106046301636801330735887046724067904246264221253082986821387702352000150382105459492540302786938181493081502215942199876108616721467093739804847713936549413446834906994114529397327904886232607806756371835596374620419815122310401655449717218564125398228330706755425729511128132721363481281890996680200745008457481058282180889841829238887390488254657974724757868 SO YOU WERE PRETTY CLOSE ACTUALLY

God: T-REX PICK A NUMBER BETWEEN ONE AND TEN T-Rex: Seven! God: OKAY T-Rex: So did I guess correctly? God: I MEAN God: NO God: THERE WERE INFINITELY MANY NUMBERS YOU COULD'VE GUESSED BETWEEN ONE AND TEN BUT YOU GUESSED A WHOLE NUMBER WHICH ARE THE LOWEST OF THE LOW HANGING FRUIT God: I DON'T WANT TO SAY I'M DISAPPOINTED SO UH God: I WON'T T-Rex: What do you do when you've disappointed GOD HIMSELF, Utahraptor? Utahraptor: Dunno! Never done it! Utahraptor: I prefer to underpromise and overdeliver, really. Kinda my whole deal. T-Rex: Sounds nice. Utahraptor: Oh, it is! God: IF YOU GUESSED RIGHT I WAS GONNA SHARE ONE OF MY SUPERPOWERS WITH YOU LIKE SHOOTING LIGHTNING OUT OF MY EYES T-Rex: Aw, man! God: YEAH IT'S GREAT WHEN THERE'S SOMETHING CONDUCTIVE FAR AWAY THAT YOU'D LIKE TO ELECTRIFY God (punchline): BASICALLY DESIGNED FOR IT REALLY

utahraptor has known t-rex long enough to not even question when he says "I had to open my mouth for that?" out of nowhere. THERE'S PROBABLY A LONG, BONKERS STORY

God: T-REX OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND CLOSE YOUR EYES AND YOU WILL GET A BIG SURPRISE T-Rex: Can do!! God: UH God: YOUR EYES ARE STILL OPEN T-Rex: Yeah, I wanna see what it is! Any surprise that's going inside THIS gaping maw will be visually observed first. The only things going into my open mouth without me observing them are the eight spiders a year I swallow while sleeping! Utahraptor: That's a super fake statistic, T-Rex! T-Rex: Even better! Frankly, it's a relief!! God: THE BIG SURPRISE WAS GOING TO BE THE ABILITY TO FIRE LIGHTNING OUT OF YOUR EYES T-Rex: I had to open my mouth for that? God: WELL YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY God: YOU CAN'T MAKE AN OMELETTE WITHOUT BREAKING A FEW EGGS God: OR AS WE SAY UP HERE God: YOU CAN'T FIRE LIGHTNING OUT OF YOUR EYES WITHOUT CATASTROPHICALLY UPGRADING A FEW INTERNAL ORGANS AND SKELETAL STRUCTURES T-Rex: Yeah that makes sense T-Rex (punchline): I have no further questions

FRANKLY FIRING ANYTHING OUT OF ANYTHING SOUNDS LIKE A PERK TO ME

God: T-REX T-Rex: Let me guess: you want to give me the ability to fire lightning out of my eyes. Well do it, man! Nothing's holding you back! GO NUTS! God: OKAY God: DONE T-Rex: Wait - really? God: IT TURNS OUT YOU HAD THE POWER WITHIN YOU ALL ALONG T-Rex: Huh? God: YEAH UH UPON INSPECTION JUST ABOUT EVERY LIVING THING WITH EYES HAS THE ABILITY TO FIRE ELECTRICITY OUT OF THEM THEY JUST NEED TO FIGURE OUT THE CONTROLS God: ANYWAY God: PEACE T-Rex: RRRRRgggghhhhHHHH Utahraptor: What's with the weird noises? T-Rex: Oh, hey Utahraptor. I'm operating under the assumption that I can fire lightning out of my eyes if I try hard enough. GOD HIMSELF told me words to that effect! Utahraptor: Yep! That's for sure a super sane sentence that a super sane person would say! God: HOLD ON I MADE A MISTAKE WHEN I SAID "LIGHTNING" I SHOULD'VE BEEN SAYING "TEARS" YOU CAN FIRE TEARS OUT OF YOUR EYES T-Rex: Come on, man! I thought you were infallible! God: LISTEN T-REX God: THIS DAY HAS BEEN HARD ENOUGH God (punchline): THANKS

THE WORLD WHERE THERE'S ONLY ONE PERSON LEFT, BUT AT LEAST HE HAS TIME TO READ BOOKS, BUT THEN HE BREAKS HIS GLASSES: "ah, yes, audiobooks will do nicely, and failing that I can easily teach myself the braille alphabet, excellent"

Narrator: BEHOLD! VISIONS INTO WORLDS WHERE ONE THING HAS BEEN CHANGED... Narrator: ...WITH TERRIFYING RESULTS! T-Rex: AHHHHH! Narrator: THE WORLD WHERE EVERYONE HAS CHOCOLATE HAIR! T-Rex: I have eaten all my body hair. Dromiceiomimus: As have I. T-Rex: I have no regrets, however. Dromiceiomimus: Yes. Dromiceiomimus: You have summarized our situation perfectly Narrator: THE WORLD WHERE EVERYONE'S GHOSTS! Utahraptor: We dealt with this one too! T-Rex: Sure did! T-Rex: You ever think that no matter how much the world around us changes, the one thing we can never change is OURSELVES? Utahraptor: Nah. We can change ourselves too! That's what positive growth is! Narrator: JUST THEN, SOMEONE FIRES A CANNONBALL AT T-REX AND UTAHRAPTOR! T-Rex: Good thing we're already ghosts. Off panel: YEP T-Rex: These untouchable immortal bodies are rad with no downsides. Off panel (punchline): YEP

PAST ME SETS THEM UP, PRESENT ME KNOCKS THEM DOWN, FUTURE ME WONDERS IF IT WAS ALL WORTH IT WHILE TOOTING IN SHOCK

T-Rex: One day Gassy Dave (he tooted a lot but it's not relevant to this story for at least a little while) died. T-Rex: And he ended up in the afterlife! T-Rex: Expecting oblivion after death, he was understandably pretty stoked to discover that death was less of a "game over" and more of a "DLC expansion pack". That is, until he ran into a spiritual accountant with a slide rule! Utahraptor: He was sad to discover the afterlife had outdated technology? T-Rex: No, that his life was being quantified! T-Rex: And it wasn't "good vs evil deeds" being counted either. Instead they looked at every time he rhetorically said "I bet" - as in "I bet it'll rain tomorrow" - and treated it as a wager... FOR HIS IMMORTAL SOUL! T-Rex: Dave tooted in shock! Off panel: There it is. T-Rex (punchline): There it is!!

ESSAY-WRITING TIP: Below your word count? Got a phrase that's a number followed by a noun? Insert "of your Earth" between them and you're laughing all the way to the bank. The GOOD GRADES bank, that is! TWO of your Earth Good Grades banks, that is!

T-Rex: God, if you wanted to, could you make me and Utahraptor Freaky Friday each other? God: OF COURSE God: I CAN DO ANYTHING God: BUT UH WHAT IS A FREAKY FRIDAY T-Rex: What?! T-Rex: It's when you body swap! It's a reference to the famed 1976 film and the much less famed 1995 and 2003 remakes! You've never SEEN it? God: I MEAN I'VE NEVER SEEN A LOT OF THINGS God: I'M KINDA BUSY UP HERE YOU KNOW AND I DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TIME TO WATCH MOVIES ALL DAY God: THANKS T-Rex: This is blowing my mind! Utahraptor: What is? T-Rex: GOD doesn't have free time to watch movies! I thought he knew all and saw all, but APPARENTLY among the things he doesn't see are makes AND REMAKES of classic family fantasy-comedy teen films! Utahraptor: Religion sure is complicated. God: T-REX I HAVE NOW CONSUMED THE MEDIA CONTENT YOU RECOMMENDED T-Rex: Great! What did you think? God: MY REVIEW IS AS FOLLOWS God (punchline): TWO OF YOUR EARTH THUMBS UP BUT IT WAS DONE BETTER IN UNIVERSE 2A46F, TIMELINE 8C2521

don't get too close to the clothes dryer

T-Rex: Oh goodness but do I love an alternate history! What if the Roman Empire hadn't fallen? What if airships were popular instead of explodey? T-Rex: What if things were FAMILIAR, AND YET MARKEDLY DIFFERENT?? T-Rex: Can't get enough. I gobble it up, Dromiceiomimus. Dromiceiomimus: So you must love travelling then. T-Rex: Huh? Dromiceiomimus: What is travelling but to visit alternate possibilities of being, all proceeding from the same basic premise? T-Rex: The premise of "a while ago we evolved and then invented some cultures"! Of course! Utahraptor: Of course what? T-Rex: Travel, Utahraptor, isn't just moving in PHYSICAL space. It's also travel in the space of possibilities, effectively re-running the experiment of civilization and seeing other ways it could've ended up! Man! Why hasn't someone explained basic facts to me via scifi before? It makes learning fun! Narrator: LATER: Off panel: T-Rex, hanging your clothes out to dry is really just cooking them with the radiation of a billion constantly exploding nuclear bombs in space. T-Rex: YEP T-Rex (punchline): I LOVE HOUSEWORK

throw some jetpacks on there and you'll truly change the world!! it may not be for the better, but it will definitely be for the different

T-Rex: [thinks] Giant kites that let you glide to work T-Rex: That's it! THAT'S IT! T-Rex: That's the LAST good idea I'll ever have!! T-Rex: Everyone has a certain number of good ideas that they'll ever have, and once they reach their limit, they're done! They'll never have a good idea again. They used up all their juice and now any ideas that are left are bad ones. Utahraptor: That's absolutely not true, T-Rex! And even if it were, it's self-disproving. T-Rex: Explain! Utahraptor: Even IF you've had your last good idea, MY last one could spark something in you: a new way of thinking that lets you build on what's there with even MORE new good ideas. T-Rex: It's a convincing argument! And yet, I still feel certain that I've peaked, and my Pantry of Good Ideas truly is bare!! T-Rex: [thinks] Tiny roller skates for squirrels that are mandatory T-Rex: Utahraptor! T-Rex (punchline): NEVERMIND!!

(thinking) dang it man you KNEW this, why'd i have to screw this up, you need an embrocation for your BRAIN that's what you need, no, no, i'm sorry, you're doing great and i love you

T-Rex: Want to be a smarter person? Sure, lots of us do. But how can we be sure we're getting smarter? T-Rex: How can we measure something as crazy as intelligence? Dromiceiomimus: T-Rex, if you're going to say something as flawed and culturally relative as "an IQ test" I will pick you up and break you over my knee. T-Rex: I wasn't, but - you can do that? Dromiceiomimus: Oh, I can do that. T-Rex: I... believe you, I think?? Utahraptor: So what were you going to suggest? T-Rex: Relative measurement! T-Rex: It's hard to give everyone a sortable intelligence score, but it's TRIVIAL to make sure you're smarter than you were yesterday: just learn something new! Memorize a new vocabulary word each day and you'll be both smarter AND more well spoken. You TRULY will have achieved a beautiful embrocation. Off panel: I thought that word meant "to rub an oil or other moist medicine into a diseased part of the body". T-Rex: [thinks] OMG WHY DOES HE KNOW THAT WORD T-Rex: ...Yes. Uh, this was a test, and you passed. T-Rex (punchline): [thinks] SERIOUSLY THOUGH

I gotta stop conceiving of everything in terms of steak, it's negatively impacting my life, I thought it would make things well done but when that happens it's rare OH NO IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN

T-Rex: You know what they call a boat you don't buy for a specific purpose? T-Rex: A pleasure craft! T-Rex: DELIGHTFUL. T-Rex: I want this EVERYWHERE. I want dress pants, work pants, and PLEASURE PANTS. Dress socks, work socks, and PLEASURE SOCKS. Dromiceiomimus: Any non-clothes examples? T-Rex: Morning toast, evening toast, and PLEASURE TOAST. Dromiceiomimus: I must admit - that's pretty compelling. Utahraptor: But if everything not specifically reserved for something else is pleasure, doesn't that diminish pleasure? T-Rex: Nope! T-Rex: Utahraptor, I recently started saying "that gentleman" instead of "that guy" or "that bone-in thick cut of bad news". And you know what? EVERYTHING SOUNDS CLASSIER. It's the same for pleasure! There's literally no downsides! T-Rex: [thinks] Bone-in thick cut of bad news? T-Rex: Excuse me, Utahraptor T-Rex (punchline): Could you think a little quieter, please

it has come to my attention that nobody spells hallowe'en like "hallowe'en" anymore but it has also come to my attention that i'll never change!!!! happy hallowe'en!!!!!!!

T-Rex: One day, Patrick Stewart (no relation to any celebrities that share that name, this is an original character) rubbed a magic lamp and a genie came out! She said she'd grant him three wishes. Pat was excited! T-Rex: And his first wish was to wish for infinite wishes! T-Rex: The genie said "Okay, fine, now you have infinite wishes". Pat spent the next few wishes putting restrictions on what he could wish for: nothing with outcomes he'd consider "ironic" or "upsetting", nothing that would result in him losing access to his wishes, nothing that would reduce his wish store by more than one wish at a time, etc. All the safeties he could think of! Utahraptor: And then what happened? T-Rex: And then it was time for Pat to CHANGE THE WORLD. T-Rex: Pat's first wish was for universal peace, which was achieved by killing EVERYONE IN THE UNIVERSE except Pat! Utahraptor: But that goes against Pat's wish rules for no upsetting outcomes! T-Rex: No! BECAUSE IN A TWIST ENDING, PAT'S A PSYCHOPATH WHO LOVES MURDER!! HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!! Narrator: SORRY FOR NOT WARNING YOU THIS COMIC WOULD CONTAIN AN EXTREMELY TERRIFYING STORY Narrator (punchline): HAPPY HALLOWE'EN

Dogcula was such a success that soon Dracula was biting all the animals he could find. Birdculas were less successful since they kept flying into sunlight and exploding, but Wormculas were an amazing security system against the living, swarming over and devouring any who ventured too close from the feet up, so that was nice

T-Rex: Dracula, who was a vampire, made other vampires by I guess biting them to suck their blood but not all of it, so then they turned into vampires instead of what they'd otherwise eventually turn into, which is skeletons. T-Rex: I am ALMOST CERTAIN that's how vampire reproduction works! T-Rex: Dracula was pondering this when he looked down at his dog, Dogcula, who he'd had for the past 12 years. Dogcula was getting old. Dogcula was going to die one day. And finally Dracula realized: why was he only turning his OWN species? What was preventing him from giving Dogcula the same immortality he enjoyed? And so gently and lovingly, Dracula bit Dogcula, but just a li'l. Utahraptor: And so the world was introduced to dog vampires? T-Rex: YES. T-Rex: And honestly this was supposed to be a spooky story but I'm so touched by the love Dogcula and Dracula share that I honestly don't care. This man and his dog are going to be pals forever! For as long as time exists, these two are going to love each other!! T-Rex: Ahhhhhhh it's SO GOOD Narrator: THE TRUE HORROR IS THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN TO US Narrator (punchline): HAPPY HALLOWE'EN

WAIT / WHAT / IT TURNS OUT ANYONE REALLY CAN EDIT THIS THING

God: HEY T-REX WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE TYPE OF CAKE T-Rex: Ice cream cake! God: NOT REALLY SURE THAT COUNTS AS CAKE T-Rex: Sure it does! God: IT'S JUST THAT TYPICAL CAKE INGREDIENTS ARE FLOUR SUGAR EGGS BUTTER AND A LEAVENING AGENT God: I TOOK THAT FROM WIKIPEDIA BY THE WAY God: INCIDENTALLY I WENT BACK AND ALTERED THE PARAMETERS OF THIS UNIVERSE SO THAT WIKIPEDIA WOULD BE CREATED THEREBY GIVING ME A RELIABLE SOURCE TO REFER TO THE NATURE OF CAKES WITH T-Rex: Utahraptor, do YOU think ice cream cake counts as cake? Utahraptor: Sure! Utahraptor: Is it sweet? Check. Can you eat it with a fork? Check. Then it's cake. T-Rex: Uh - not sure I agree with that. Pie's not cake. Utahraptor: Pie is a degenerate case of twice-baked jam cake with dough icing. God: SO NOBODY'S GONNA COMMENT ON MY ALTERING ALL OF HISTORY JUST TO CREATE WIKIPEDIA HUH T-Rex: What does God need with an encyclopedia that anyone can edit? God: I MEAN God (punchline): NOT MUCH ANYMORE

i don't know why you're thinking "hey, wait a minute, valentine's day and hallowe'en aren't days off"! Everyone ELSE gets them off. You're the only one missing out!! Also HAPPY EARLY SOCIAL ANXIETY AND FEAR OF MISSING OUT DAY!!

T-Rex: Hallowe'en celebrates fright, Valentine's Day celebrates love, and New Year's Day celebrates hope! Not bad, not bad. T-Rex: However: T-Rex: I respectfully submit there are way more emotions that we should take entire days off to process!! T-Rex: Where's the day off to celebrate satisfaction? Trust? AMUSEMENT? Heck, I'd even take a BEMUSEMENT day at this point. And I will point out that fear is usually considered a bad emotion, so holidays celebrating other "bad" feelings like shame, irritation, or VENGEFULNESS should not be off the table! Utahraptor: What would you do on Vengefulness Day? T-Rex: SETTLE SCORES, Utahraptor. DUH. T-Rex: And in this modern era, such a holiday would be EASILY MERCHANDISABLE. Forget cards! I'm talking SWORDS. SPIKEY BALLS ON CHAINS. Utahraptor: That's called a "flail". T-Rex: Was that a note of condescension? I'll see YOU on Vengefulness Day, Utahraptor!! Narrator: BUT IT TURNS OUT EMPATHY DAY IS SCHEDULED FOR THE DAY BEFORE, FORCING T-REX TO ABANDON HIS REVENGE PLANS: T-Rex: Aw dang it. T-Rex (punchline): Dang these stupid feelings that society and the state have scheduled me to feel

the only alternative is that Christmas stops expanding backwards and instead begin growth in the other direction, FORWARD in the calendar. Assuming Hallowe'en continues its backwards growth, this should let us postpone the two holidays meeting for at least 50 years, at which point they'll collide in the summer. This, of course, assumes our continued success in preventing "Christmas in July" from taking hold, which is not at all certain.

T-Rex: One day Danny, who was a ZOMBIE GHOST, decided to - Off panel: NOPE! Off panel: Hallowe'en is over, T-Rex! T-Rex: DROMICEIOMIMUS! T-Rex: You're throwing your voice much more than usual. Dromiceiomimus: I'm sorry, but I have to draw the line here. Hallowe'en has been suffering inflation for years, with spooky skeleton decorations now coming out on October FIRST. THAT'S FULLY ONE MONTH EARLY! Current projections put us at CHRISTMAS levels of inflation in under a decade! Utahraptor: And it's not like Christmas has stopped expanding either! T-Rex: No? Utahraptor: T-Rex, there's Christmas stores that are open ALL YEAR ROUND. December's already been lost to the holiday, and November's barely hanging on. These two holidays are on a collision course, and when they meet - well, even our best holiday scientists don't dare predict what will happen. Off panel: Our less-best holiday scientists, however, are eager to predict they'll merge into a six-month holiday called "DEATHMAS". T-Rex: OH MY GOSH!! T-Rex (punchline): IS IT TOO EARLY TO SAY THEIR OPINIONS SEEM VERY CORRECT

our friendship is keeping me up at night, our friendship is knocking on my door and telling me that i need to let it inside

T-Rex: Who wants to have a long discussion about friendships they and I share? T-Rex: ...Anyone?? T-Rex: Hello! I kinda need a volunteer for this! T-Rex: I can't talk about our friendship by myself, DUH. Dromiceiomimus, can we please talk about what's going on? Dromiceiomimus: Honestly, T-Rex, I'm worried about the friendship we created together. I fear it's getting... well, I believe the phrase is "dangerously ambitious". T-Rex: We knew the risks, Dromiceiomimus!! Utahraptor: It's clear the friendship WE share is wildly amoral! T-Rex: And who's to blame for THAT? Utahraptor: We're well past "blame", T-Rex. I think the word we NEED to be looking at is "containment". Narrator: (SORRY, I SHOULD'VE MENTIONED SOONER THAT THIS COMIC TAKES PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE "FRIENDSHIP" MEANS "ANIMAL/HUMAN HYBRID". IT'S A PRETTY CRAZY PLACE, GOTTA SAY.) T-Rex: Utahraptor! Our friendship has escaped and is infecting the city!! Narrator (punchline): GLAD WE GOT AROUND TO VISITING IT

"The Case of the Purloined Pauper!" Watson gasped. "Yes Watson," Sherlock said, "someone actually stole a poor person. It was an allegory, as well as a crime."

T-Rex: Sherlock Holmes, who was the greatest detective the world had ever known, that is of course until 3:18 pm on June 18th, 2054 when Detectron 3000 first came online, frowned. T-Rex: The Case of the Purloined Pauper was turning out to be his most challenging caper yet! T-Rex: Sherlock went over the facts of the case in his head again, which was obviously unnecessary for Detectron 3000, which could keep all relevant facts in memory at the same time. Sherlock searched for some inconsistency, some niggling thread he could pull on to unravel the whole case; the later Detectron 3000 would of course detect such things so quickly as to be effectively instantaneous. Utahraptor: "Of course!" Sherlock said. "The doctor said he was LEFT-HANDED!" T-Rex: Yes! This would blow this case wide open! T-Rex: Sherlock raced to confront the doctor in a carriage literally towed by a horse; in that time Detectron 3000 could not only resolve the case, but also have the culprit arrested. By all possible metrics, Detectron 3000 was the superior detection engine, therefore its adventures were also superior. T-Rex: The character of Detectron 3000 is available now for licensing across all media. T-Rex and off panel (punchline): THE END

if you're wondering how a tyrannosaurus rex could even hold his cloaca, i gotta say, it's like you've never seen those grab claw extendoarm toys

T-Rex: Want to look like an idiot, but only in a long while? Why not predict the WORLD OF TOMORROW?? Narrator: PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE T-Rex: For example, I predict that the idea that "REAL men don't sit to pee" will be gone in a generation, as smartphones are easier to use with two hands! Dromiceiomimus: Wait, men hold their cloaca while they pee? T-Rex: S- T-Rex: ... T-Rex: Some do Utahraptor: I predict that new technologies will replace old technologies! T-Rex: BOLD! Utahraptor: But I FURTHER predict that many of the old technologies will remain as prestige or niche items! Radio didn't kill oratory, TV didn't kill plays, and fully-convincing always-on holodecks that are just like real life only EXTRAORDINARILY BETTER won't kill reality. T-Rex: ...They might though. Off panel: Yeah, soon as I said it I was like, "Damn son, you have never been more wrong". Then I was like, "How long has my inner voice been referring to me as 'son'?" Off panel (punchline): And that basically brings us up to now!

Pangaea more like BLANDgBLAH

T-Rex: Bering Strait? More like BORING Strait!! Narrator: DISSES ABOUT THE WORLD T-Rex: Also, the Bering Sea? More like the BORI-- Dromiceiomimus: If you're referring to the hypothetical FUTURE Bering strait that would be between two continents, such an area could be used as a land bridge, allowing life to travel from one to the other before they moved apart. It's actually quite fascinating! Utahraptor: Also, it would be a convenient place for an International Date to cross the planet. T-Rex: GEEZ, fine! T-Rex: I only wanted to get in some ZINGERS about various world landmarks, and thought choosing hypothetical future ones would be safe. But as that is CLEARLY not the case, here's some DINOSAUR-TIMES zingers! Pangaea? More like - Utahraptor: "BLANDgaea"? Narrator: T-REX WAS GOING TO SAY "More like PangaeBLAH", AN OBJECTIVELY INFERIOR JOKE: T-Rex: Yes! Hah hah, that's exactly what I was going to say!! T-Rex (punchline): Hah hah

life may be hard, but language has gendered conjugations, so

T-Rex: One day Ares, who had many opinions, met Sera, who had all the opposite opinions. Ares would say "I like chocolate chip ice cream" and Sera would say "I like vanilla"! T-Rex: No, wait. T-Rex: Sera would actually say "I HATE chocolate chip ice cream"! T-Rex: No... is that really the opposite? Maybe "I like VANILLA chip ice cream" is the right answer here. Dromiceiomimus: Following the logic that the opposite of iced cream would be heated cream, maybe Sera says she likes lattes instead? T-Rex: Dang, this is raising some hard-core ontological questions! What IS the opposite of liking chocolate chip ice cream? Utahraptor: You'd need to make EVERY word its opposite! So instead of "liking chocolate chip ice cream"... Utahraptor: ...it's HATING vanilla ripple heated cheese! T-Rex: Whoah. I do NOT accept that the opposite of "chip" is "ripple", nor that the opposite of "cream" is "cheese". The opposite of "cream" is "chunk". Therefore, Sera hates heated vanilla chunk slurry. T-Rex: ...which leaves open the door that both her and Ares could hate that and LIKE ice cream, which goes against the "opposite opinions" premise. Off panel: Language is hard! T-Rex: No, LIFE is hard!! T-Rex (punchline): Language is just how we talk about it

Folks, I feel like our use of the phrase "a folk" started out as nonstandard, but here, on the other side, it now feels entirely natural. A folk has no regrets about this, and encourages all other folks to look at their folks and tell them about the new ways a folk can be a folk

T-Rex: Hey! You know what'd be great? If folks stopped being horrible! T-Rex: Thanks in advance, folks! T-Rex: I can't wait for this new world of folks, wherein a folk might say "Hmm, should I be horrible today?" and then, INSTEAD of their eyes going wide as they say "yes absolutely", they say "No, I won't!" T-Rex: I CAN'T HARDLY WAIT. Utahraptor: Instead of merely not being horrible, does a folk have to be actively good? T-Rex: That'd be nice! T-Rex: But it's not a dealbreaker. This is what I have been reduced to, Utahraptor: a world in which my baseline standard for a folk is simply "don't be horrible". THAT WOULD BE AN IMPROVEMENT. Utahraptor: Here's hopin'! Narrator: LATER, T-REX WITNESSES A FOLK HAVE THE CHANCE TO BE HORRIBLE, BUT INSTEAD OF DOING THAT, SIMPLY DOES NOTHING: T-Rex (punchline): That's good enough! You're good enough!! YOU MEET MY BASELINE STANDARDS, AND FOR SOME REASON THIS RECENTLY FEELS EXCEPTIONAL!!

i'll just stand perfectly still and feel this for a bit

T-Rex: Rage! It's an emotion that makes us do stupid things, like stalk around raging instead of reading a book called "How To Be Less Ragey By Reading A Book When You're Really Ragey" - T-Rex: - which, incidentally, would be an AMAZING book to have on your shelf - T-Rex: - but does it have a productive PURPOSE? In other words, are there instances in which rage has led to OBJECTIVE GOOD? T-Rex: Well, we're about to find out, as we explore... Narrator: THE INSTANCES IN WHICH RAGE HAS LED TO OBJECTIVELY GOOD THINGS Utahraptor: T-Rex! Your introduction and book-related aside burned through all our time! T-Rex: ARGH! I CAN'T BELIEVE I MESSED THIS UP AGAIN! THIS MAKES ME WANT TO READ A BOOK THAT DOESN'T EVEN EXIST YET!! Off panel: Wait! Maybe I can IMAGINE reading the book instead! T-Rex: RARRRGH!! T-Rex (punchline): [thinks] Nah, I'll just feel this for a bit

if you want a picture of a sadder future, imagine me being confused by all the things i've already forgotten >:(

T-Rex: George Orwell once said "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face"! T-Rex: Pretty big downer, George Orwell! T-Rex: Instead of imagining a boot stamping on a human face - which seems OBVIOUSLY UNKIND towards humans - why not instead imagine a boot stamping on a button marked "IT'S THE FUTURE NOW, EVERYTHING'S GREAT!"? Huh? T-Rex: No answer to THAT little question, eh Orwell? Utahraptor: Orwell's dead. T-Rex: Oh. T-Rex: Well, if you want to imagine Orwell's grave, just imagine a boot, who is sentient, solemly paying respects by a piece of granite with Orwell's name on it. Utahraptor: "Orwell" was a pen name. Your boot wants the gravestone for "Eric Arthur Blair". T-Rex: *sigh* T-Rex (punchline): If you want a picture of the future, imagine me being confused by all the things I still don't know

i don't wanna get too political, but i feel like the time has come to take a stand: i am in favour of sensible people with good ideas

T-Rex: Before computers could run more than one program at the same time, games used to have what was called a "boss key"! This key would pause the game and fill the screen with a spreadsheet instead. T-Rex: That way, if your boss came by, it would look like you were working! T-Rex: Of course, bosses had a "middle management" key for their bosses, which would pause the game and fill the screen with third quarter productivity reports of all the employees under them. T-Rex: And middle management had a "CEO key" that'd pause the game and fill the screen with both a summary and a regression analysis of all the third quarter productivity reports! T-Rex: And the CEOs? Why, they had an "unscheduled nosy investor meeting" key, of course! Utahraptor: T-Rex! Utahraptor: You've taken something that was real (boss keys) and obscured this TRUE INTERESTING FACT with a load of fake facts, thereby muddying the waters for anyone with a legit interest in boss keys, or the early era of goofing off at work and almost getting caught! T-Rex: NO REGRETS! LET CHAOS REIGN!! Narrator: BUT THEN: T-Rex (punchline): CHAOS HAS REIGNED TOO MUCH, LET SENSIBLE PEOPLE WITH GOOD IDEAS REIGN FOR A WHILE INSTEAD

honestly, i didn't know i had a crippling weakness for bragging about computers to people in the past until I basically tripped over it

Narrator: T-REX HAS TRAVELLED BACK IN TIME 10 YEARS! T-Rex: Yes! It's now the heady age of TEN YEARS AGO, and I come to you with... T-Rex: ...SECRETS from the WORLD of TOMORROW! T-Rex: Dromiceiomimus! In the future, computers will be faster than the ones available today! Dromiceiomimus: Oh, cool. That's about what I expected. Have transistor counts doubled every two years or so, as they have been since the early 1970s? T-Rex: DROMICEIOMIMUS! T-Rex: YES!! T-Rex: Utahraptor! In the future, cell phones will be better than the ones available now! Utahraptor: Oh, good. Utahraptor: And also what I expected. Tell me, have there been improvements made in internet speeds too? T-Rex: Yes, there absolutely have been! In the future much faster internet is available! T-Rex: And now I must return to my time!! T-Rex: Oh dang it T-Rex (punchline): I got so excited to brag about computers that I forgot to warn them about all the bad stuff

t-rex has travelled back in time 0.00001 nanoseconds! he never notices, and neither does anyone else. the end

Narrator: T-REX HAS TRAVELLED BACK IN TIME 10 MINUTES! T-Rex: Yes! It's now the heady age of TEN MINUTES AGO, and I come to you with... T-Rex: ...uh... not much? T-Rex: Honestly, going back in time ten minutes or less is pretty useless. Dromiceiomimus: ARE YOU KIDDING? When you travel back in TIME, you also move in space too, right? T-Rex: Yes, absolutely! Otherwise going back 10 minutes would leave me stranded in deep space, far away from where Earth was then! T-Rex: This ISN'T my first rodeo. Utahraptor: What happens if instead of going back ten minutes, you go back just 0.00001 seconds? T-Rex: Uh - Utahraptor: And, WHAT HAPPENS if instead of moving to the SAME relative spot, you move somewhere else? I'll tell you what happens: YOU JUST FUNCTIONALLY INVENTED TELEPORTERS. T-Rex: OH MY GOSH, THAT'S SO AMAZING!! Narrator: T-REX RETURNS TO THE PRESENT: T-Rex (punchline): - IS WHAT I'D BE SAYING IF I COULD TRAVEL BACK IN TIME SOME MORE, BUT THIS WEIRD LAMP I FOUND IS OUT OF WISHES AND I NOW REALIZE I KINDA BLEW THEM ON LOWKEY TIME TRAVEL TO CHAT WITH MY PALS

if you can't handle me at my qwantz.com, you don't deserve me at my dromiceiomim.us

T-Rex: If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best!! T-Rex: PLEASE RT T-Rex: ALSO PLEASE DON'T TELL ME THE ABSURDITY OF SHOUTING "PLEASE RT" IN REAL LIFE T-Rex: Marilyn Monroe said it, Dromiceiomimus. Dromiceiomimus: No she didn't. She never, ever, ever said it, not even once. T-Rex: Please. I'm PRETTY SURE she probably said it at least once. Probably just when you weren't looking. Utahraptor: Why do you insist she said it? T-Rex: Because it fits my image of who she was so well! Utahraptor: Well, don't know what to tell you, except "for a woman whose life was marked by others trying to control her image, you'd think you'd be a little more sensitive to misattributing quotes to her". T-Rex: [thinks] Oh my god, I'm at my worst and he's not handling me well T-Rex (punchline): [thinks] Oh my god, later on when I'm at my best I'm super not calling him

lol

Narrator: WHO ARE YOU: Narrator: a comic to text when a strange number texts you T-Rex: Hi, recipient of this comic! T-Rex: I have absolutely no idea who you are!! T-Rex: And YES, I should've said "who is this lol" when this started, which is PROBABLY several weeks ago, but I didn't. Instead I wrote "haha yeah" whenever I was confused, which was always, and that basically brings us up to today. Dromiceiomimus: You have no idea who you've been texting to for weeks? Isn't that horrible?? T-Rex: Haha, yeah T-Rex: Are you a long-lost pal? A wrong number? Some weird cousin? Utahraptor: It's WAY too late to find out now!! T-Rex: So now you know my secret shame. I have no idea who you are but you seem nice: at least nice enough to text to for several weeks while in a state of confusion. T-Rex: This is my life now, and I don't know why. T-Rex: ... T-Rex: ... T-Rex (punchline): Lol u there

smog plus snog produces smnog, which is famously precisely as gross as it sounds

Narrator: "SMOKE" PLUS "FOG" PRODUCES "SMOG": T-Rex: Better not run any marathons on smoggy days! Or think too much about the planet we're leaving for our children hah hah hah Narrator: COMBINATORIAL WEATHER COMICS Narrator: "SNOW" PLUS "FOG" PRODUCES "SNOG": T-Rex: I've seen a few snoggy days! They're - remarkably peaceful, actually! Like the whole world has disappeared and all that's left is the peaceful fall of snow. Dromiceiomimus: To the British, "snog" is also slang for adult kissing! T-Rex: Yes T-Rex: It is something we all must accept about our snoggy friends across the pond Narrator: "VISCERA" PLUS "FOG" PRODUCES "VISCEROG": T-Rex: Wait, what? Utahraptor: What's happening?? Narrator: "SKELETONS" PLUS "VISCEROG" PRODUCES "VISCEROGETONS": T-Rex: Why are there VISCEROGETONS in the forecast?? Utahraptor: WHY ARE EVERYONE'S EYES TURNING BLACK AS THEY PROCLAIM UNDYING LOVE FOR THE VISCEROGETONS Narrator: "FOG" PLUS "VISCEROGETONS" PRODUCES "FOGGY VISCEROGETONS": T-Rex: Okay T-Rex (punchline): That doesn't sound that much worse than the others, which, I hasten to add, I am STILL very alarmed about

my favourite einstein quote is the one where he's like "Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves, p.s.: hey kids, drop out of school to play xbox"

T-Rex: Whenever there's a good smart-sounding quote, it gets attributed to Albert Einstein! "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results"? Sure, let's say Einstein said it. T-Rex: WHY NOT, RIGHT?? T-Rex: Got a good quote about war? Misattribute it to Winston Churchill. Clever quip? Slap that down to Kurt Vonnegut or Oscar Wilde, or if it sounds more olde-timey, maybe consider Henry David Thoreau or Benjamin Franklin! Well-attributed quotes rarely make history, so attribute your women-centric quote to Dorothy Parker or Marilyn Monroe! Utahraptor: ...which you, as recently as ONE WEEK AGO, were doing. T-Rex: YES. ALLEGEDLY. T-Rex: But this is my new LIFE GOAL, Utahraptor! To become famous enough for being Vaguely Good At Speaking that people start MAKING UP great quotes for me. How great is that? I can be long dead and thirsty randos will STILL be making up good-sounding things and giving ME all the credit? YES PLEASE. Narrator: TWO SECONDS LATER: Off panel: "Racisms make-a me horny, hubba hubba" - T-Rex. T-Rex: Wow! This backfired T-Rex: SO T-Rex (punchline): QUICKLY

one day zeus will learn he doesn't NEED the crutch of being a goat. one day zeus will learn to love himself as he REALLY is, which is a formless and timeless being from beyond our three dimensions; to gaze upon his true form is to experience true madness

T-Rex: Before copyright was a thing, anyone could make up stories! You could say "One day Zeus turned into a goat to have sex with a human" and folks would be like "Sure I guess, why not." T-Rex: AND NOT EVEN ZEUS HIMSELF COULD STOP YOU!! T-Rex: But now that copyright IS a thing, people's estates can still own and control stories for decades and decades after the death of the author. So now if I want to say "One day Mickey Mouse and the teens from Harry Potter met up with Batman to talk about how great the Dreamcast was", I could get arrested for THREE separate crimes! Utahraptor: Four, really, for implying that the Dreamcast was good. T-Rex: WHAAAA- T-Rex: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?? T-Rex: ...Although upon consideration, I haven't played it for years and I'm certain nostalgia is clouding my judgment to some degree. Off panel: And friend, I can recognize that in any subjective measurement of a cultural artifact, different elements will appeal to different people. Narrator (punchline): "SENSIBLE DISCUSSIONS"

they're extra gibbous, but they're EXTRA accursed

T-Rex: Are you ready for a story about a world much like our own, but with one TERRIFYING DIFFERENCE? Well I hope so, because here comes A WORLD MUCH LIKE OUR OWN BUT WITH ONE TERRIFYING DIFFERENCE! T-Rex: In THIS story, dinosaurs die out and millions of years later humans take over! T-Rex: SHOCKED ALREADY? Well good, thank you, but that wasn't the main shock. The MAIN shock is that ALSO in this world fossilization isn't a thing, so when we die out, in a few generations there's NO EVIDENCE THAT WE EVER EXISTED!! We fade into memory, then myth, then obscurity. 65 million years later, humanity inhabits a planet with NO KNOWLEDGE that they have inherited it from us! Utahraptor: Ah well. T-Rex: Yeah, we had a good run. Utahraptor: Maybe a better story would be one in which OUR fossils survive, but since WE already dug up and destroyed the remains of the Gibbous Accursed who thrashed their unutterable and nauseous bodies here before us, THEIR legacy is forever invisible to human eyes. T-Rex: Ignorance of them WOULD be a blessing. Off panel: You know, I did almost forgot about them. T-Rex: ...Yeah. T-Rex: *sigh* T-Rex (punchline): I tell myself that too

the first draft of this comic had sherlock holmes's dog in it, sherlock bones, and i am prepared to admit that cutting such a good girl was a huge mistake

T-Rex: Sherlock Holmes (world's greatest detective) and Watson (world's greatest detective sidekick) were walking down the street, looking for crime. And they found it! T-Rex: Boy howdy, did they find it this time! T-Rex: It was an armed robbery! And while Sherlock and his best friend could easily DETECT who the culprit was - it was the guy with the gun demanding everyone's rubies - that wasn't much use in PREVENTING the crime. Sherlock's skills were in detection, not in physically restraining criminals! And THAT'S how the criminal escaped with everyone's precious jewels. Utahraptor: Oh no! Did this cause a crisis of faith for Sherlock? T-Rex: Nah. T-Rex: He let the criminal go, but now they were on HIS turf. Sherlock detected him ruthlessly, detecting not just where he had gone, but where he was trying to unload the rubies, the motivations he had for doing the crime, and even detected an upcoming double cross twist that the criminal himself hadn't noticed! T-Rex: In the end, Sherlock detected the rubies back to their rightful owners, and thus, while personally poor, he remained a strong force for the property rights of megarich jewel owners. Off panel: This seems fraught. T-Rex (punchline): Sherlock detected that too, yeah

any competent theology must answer the question of why god allows bad things to happen to good people, and also, if god has a spider-sense (and, one assumes, web shooters), why is he not shown using them more often. why does god not simply web the devil to a light pole outside the police station

Narrator: WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE PART OF BEING ALIVE? T-Rex: My favorite part is the food! T-Rex: AND ALSO THE KISSING Dromiceiomimus: Mine's solving puzzles: that moment of insight when everything seems possible. I love it! T-Rex: Hmm, yes, that's definitely something I too regularly experience, as a fellow smart person. T-Rex: It's truly, uh... T-Rex: ...good. T-Rex: [small] and cool Utahraptor: I like the senses! T-Rex: All of them? Even the duds? Utahraptor: Yep! Utahraptor: You put something in front of me and I can see it, touch it, TASTE it, smell it - I'm like this walking talking chemical testing facility, only instead of experiencing information as NUMBERS and DATA, I experience it innately, as colour and sound and taste and everything else. It's kinda bonkers. God: MINE'S THE EXTRA SPIDER-BASED SENSES I GAVE MYSELF, LIKE THE TINGLING SENSATION I GET WHENEVER DANGER IS NEARBY T-Rex: Oh my god God: YES God (punchline): SPEAKING

the ";" in "Z;krlogh" is easy to pronounce: it's just the sound a 10th-dimensional sytr;swoth makes

T-Rex: People, SUCH AS MYSELF, are tired of speculative fiction where everything's the same, except for one chilling difference! T-Rex: They want a world where everything is DIFFERENT, except for one chilling similarity! T-Rex: So HERE WE GO! *ahem*. T-Rex: Z;krlogh 217, a boundless hivemind (this is the part you can recognize) whose senses were so alien to us as to be completely unfathomable, reacted to what they sensed. This reaction played out in areas of experience forbidden to all but Z;krlogh 217. THE END. Utahraptor: I feel like your readers might need something they can latch on to. T-Rex: You may be right! T-Rex: My NEW character, Rich Eader, showed up! He needed everything explained to him with simple Earth metaphors. And every time he figured something out, he'd deliver one of his patented "R.Eader Explanations"! Utahraptor: Somehow, you made it catastrophically worse?? T-Rex: ...Part of me thought I'd go my whole career without someone telling me my writing made things "catastrophically worse"! T-Rex: *sigh* T-Rex (punchline): Although in retrospect, I'm really not sure why

in a good way! IN A GOOD WAY

T-Rex: So the paintings kids do could use some work, right? Like we all know in our heart of hearts they're not as technically proficient as they could be, yeah? T-Rex: Everyone who isn't the immediate parent suspects this to be the case, correct? T-Rex: But then kids practice and study and they get better. And then, if they CONTINUE to study, they become even better - and if they dedicate their life's work to it, they might even become masters that push their art form forward. But then they die! And because of our finite lifespans, ART can only get SO GOOD! Utahraptor: You're saying that a longer-lived species could produce better art? T-Rex: I'm saying they'd HAVE to! T-Rex: It's hubris to think OUR greatest art is THE greatest art. What heights could we reach if only we had the time to reach them?? What obvious flaws do we not see in even our mightiest works because we don't live long enough to KNOW enough to perceive them? T-Rex: In conclusion, this is why all patrons of the arts should instead direct their riches towards uploading our brains into immortal cybernetic bodies. Off panel: This... wasn't where I saw this going. T-Rex (punchline): BEHOLD: THE CATCHPHRASE OF THE NEW YEAR!

the whole world is wholesome now. sorry but that's just how it is, you have to have a really wholesome year

T-Rex: A few days into the new year, and have I accomplished any of my New Year's Resolutions? The answer... T-Rex: HECK YES, BABIES!! T-Rex: In fact, I've accomplished ALL of them. Dromiceiomimus: Because you didn't have any? T-Rex: No, I actually had some! Dromiceiomimus: Was your resolution "not to make any resolutions" or any of its variants? T-Rex: Nope! Dromiceiomimus: Then congratulations!! Utahraptor: So what was your resolution? T-Rex: Utahraptor, it was to be kinder! T-Rex: And so far it's been working out great. I've said "thank you KINDLY" instead of just "thank you", "would you kindly" instead of "would you", and "i'mma kindly mess up this steak" instead of "i'mma mess up this steak". The response: UNIVERSALLY POSITIVE. Utahraptor: And that steak? T-Rex: I MESSED IT UP, Utahraptor!! Narrator: T-REX ALLOWS HIS FRIENDS TO THINK THAT MEANS HE ATE IT ENTHUSIASTICALLY, BUT ACTUALLY HE MADE AN ERROR WHILE COOKING HIS DINNER: T-Rex: I let myself down with this meal, but I love myself and know I'll do better tomorrow! T-Rex (punchline): HAPPY NEW YEAR, WE'RE WHOLESOME NOW

friends, in the face of "make way for my munchies", is it finally time for us to concede that some sentences are Not Good

T-Rex: I haven't sworn at ALL in the new year! Maybe THAT'LL be my new secret resolution: swear less! T-Rex: Heck, I haven't had a bath in the new year either! Dromiceiomimus: Wait, now that I think of it, in the new year I haven't said "Behold, my sacred brethren, for these are my nudes" yet either! T-Rex: Oh dang, there's SO many sentences I haven't said yet! "Here comes the kiss parade", "eschew the Oxford comma and your life is forfeit", "make way for my munchies" - all the classics!! Utahraptor: You might even say that the world is full of opportunities! T-Rex: You might! T-Rex: In FACT, you might say that the future isn't written so we can make whatever we want of it, whether it's something as ambitious as "having a bath" or as even, SOMEHOW, more ambitious. Tomorrow is ours, Utahraptor! What are we gonna do with it?? Off panel: I mean, it sounds like Dromiceiomimus intends to infiltrate a religious order and use it to distribute her nudes. T-Rex: *sigh* T-Rex (punchline): Yeah, I really thought this would be the year I'd get on her level but no WAY can I compete with that

turns out the "axel jump" is not named after axles (i.e., an axis around which something rotates, WHICH I ALWAYS ASSUMED) but actually after a guy named "axel paulsen" who invented the jump in the 1800s! i know this sounds like the most baloney information you've ever gleaned from a talking dinosaur webcomic but it's TRUE

Narrator: PRESENTING: THE ADVENTURES OF THE MAN WHO INSISTS ON CALLING EVERY FORM OF WATER "WATER". T-Rex: Wow! Look at all that water out there! Narrator: (HE'S LOOKING AT A FIELD OF SNOW:) T-Rex: Water as far as the eye can see! Narrator: (NOW HE'S DISCUSSING ICE SKATING:) T-Rex: Wow! Did you think she'd be able to land that QUADRUPLE axel, a jump which, I remind you, no skater has ever landed on competition water? Dromiceiomimus: I did not. T-Rex: It looked like some good water for skating. Dromiceiomimus: *sigh* Narrator: (NOW HE'S RUNNING FROM A MOUNTAINOUS CLOUD OF SCALDING STEAM:) T-Rex: Run! Run from the attack water! Narrator: (NOW HE'S FACING THE MOUNTAINOUS CLOUD OF SCALDING STEAM:) T-Rex: We can't let this water win, Utahraptor. We must defeat this angry floaty water before it defeats us. Utahraptor: IT'S CALLED STEAM! It's even moaning "steaaaam" as it tries to boil us alive! HOW ARE WE STILL HAVING THIS ARGUMENT?? Narrator: (NOW HE'S MERGING WITH THE STEAM:) Off panel: yOu WiLl jOiN tHe StEaM aNd BeCoMe ThE sTeAm LiKe AlL tHe ReSt T-Rex: I'm sorry, I simply don't understand that word you keep saying. Is this "steam" some sort of water?? Off panel (punchline): CoMe oNnNnNn, dUdE

Eagle eyed readers may have noticed that there's more than six types of stories included here. That's because there's another type of story: all previous ones but with " - featuring an unreliable narrator" added to the end. And yes, sadly this does include the unauthorized porn parodies.

Narrator: THE SIX TYPES OF STORIES: 1) MAN VS MAN Off panel: You're stupid! T-Rex: What?! Narrator: 2) MAN VS HIMSELF T-Rex: [thinks] I'm stupid! T-Rex: YOU TAKE THAT BACK! Narrator: 3) MAN VS NATURE T-Rex: You know who's really stupid though? NATURE. T-Rex: That's right, nature! As an abstract concept you can't talk back! T-Rex: WHO'S STUPID NOW?? Narrator: 4) NATURE VS ROBOCOP Utahraptor: RoboCop got trapped in a bunch of vines! T-Rex and Utahraptor: AGAIN Narrator: 5) NATURE VS NURTURE T-Rex: In this scenario Earth has a duplicate, Nemesis, which orbits on the opposite side of the sun, which is why we never detected it, and instead of Mother Nature, they have a vengeful Mother Nurture! Utahraptor: Kick asssssss Narrator: 6) ALL PREVIOUS STORY TYPES BUT WITH ": THE UNAUTHORIZED PORN PARODY" AFTER THEIR TITLES T-Rex (punchline): That's right! According to your literature professor, THESE ARE THE ONLY STORIES WE'VE EVER MANAGED TO INVENT!!

i have actually read zero steinbeck so on the off chance we sound familiar i assure you that's because famed writer guy steinbeck sounds like ME

T-Rex: Advice writers get is always "read a lot! You gotta read a lot!" And it's like, sure, but if you read a lot of Steinbeck then you'll end up sounding like Steinbeck! Read a lot of Vonnegut and guess what? Now you sound like Vonnegut! T-Rex: So it goes! T-Rex: So what is a brilliant AND YET INEXPERIENCED writer to do, hmm? Dromiceiomimus: I guess you could do what everyone else has done, which is read a lot of different writers and by so doing synthesize your own voice from the best parts of everything you've encountered?? T-Rex: OH DANG Utahraptor: Hah! So much for your little rant! T-Rex: So it goes, Utahraptor! Utahraptor: Also, there is more to sounding like Vonnegut than saying "So it goes". That's just from one story. T-Rex: Guess what? Everything you just said WASN'T beautiful, and some of it hurt! Utahraptor: That - that's also from the same story. T-Rex: Well, poo. T-Rex: ... T-Rex (punchline): ...tee-weet

*falls to knees* it has been yuuuuucccccccked

Off panel: Hey! I like the thing! T-Rex: Well I don't like the thing! Do you want to hear why I think it's bad, actually? Off panel: ...No? T-Rex: Sorry! I'm not trying to yuck your yum here! Dromiceiomimus: But are you trying to boo my woo or sad my glad? T-Rex: I'm DEFINITELY not trying to err your cares or pollute your woot! Nor, even at my most hostile, would I try to nay your yay! Utahraptor: Are you gonna step on my pep?? T-Rex: I don't wanna quell your yell! Utahraptor: Perhaps. But are you chagrining my grin? T-Rex: Not intentionally. I'm a little worried I'll rude your mood, but again: any such rudes of moods are, I assure you, completely accidental. Narrator: LATER: T-Rex: Now *I* like the thing! Off panel: Well I hate it!! T-Rex: Noooooooo T-Rex (punchline): My yummmmmmm

is that... is that not how all hugs are supposed to feel

T-Rex: Go to a country where homosexuality is outlawed, and you know what you'll sometimes see? Men touching each other casually! Men hugging! T-Rex: Men walking down the street arm in arm! T-Rex: You can get this perfect storm of the toxic "REAL MEN AREN'T GAY" idea colliding with "ALSO, SINCE LEGALLY HOMOSEXUALITY IS A FOREIGN PROBLEM AND CLEARLY DOESN'T EXIST HERE, WE DON'T NEED TO WORRY ABOUT BEING MISTAKEN AS GAY, SO LET US HUG THIS OUT MY DUDE". And it can result in physically closer male friendships! Utahraptor: Yeah, at the cost of outlawing AN ENTIRE SEXUAL ORIENTATION! T-Rex: Oh sure! T-Rex: I'm not saying it's GOOD. But I think it suggests a lot of men, consciously or not, avoid being too physical with each other so as to not appear gay. And I think we can do better!! All this to say: let's hug this out, my dude?? Utahraptor: Such a hug will feel weird and deliberate. T-Rex: ... T-Rex (punchline): I'm ready when you are, my dude

be the best you you can be, and by that we obviously mean be the best bend i. steele you can be

T-Rex: Time for me to create a SECRET IDENTITY! You know... T-Rex: ...so that I can better FIGHT CRIME?? Dromiceiomimus: In this scenario, you're fighting crime as T-Rex, and the secret identity is your new CIVILIAN identity? T-Rex: Yes. I'll be "Tori Boring, non-heroic citizen". Dromiceiomimus: Because that means everyone will look into your CURRENT T-Rex identity, and your NEW identity would be the only safe one. And at that point you're basically just starting a new life! Utahraptor: Plus, secret identities don't work anymore! T-Rex: Sure they do! Utahraptor: Dude, they haven't worked since FINGERPRINTS, and that's putting aside other biometrics like retina scans and facial recognition. When FACEBOOK is automatically picking you out of pics for FUNSIES, the fantasy of being able to pass yourself off as "Bend I. Steele, astronaut /private investigator" is DEAD. Narrator: T-REX HAS JUST REALIZED HE WILL GO TO HIS GRAVE THINKING ABOUT HOW KICK-ASS AN IDENTITY "BEND I. STEELE" IS: T-Rex: whoah Narrator: AND HOW BECOMING "BEND I. STEELE" WILL NEVER BE FAR FROM HIS THOUGHTS: T-Rex (punchline): no regrets

we'd all sign up for something like orkut or myspace or friendster or formspring or friendfeed or google buzz or piczo or sixdegrees or "windows live spaces" which wikipedia assures me was a thing, or -

T-Rex: Hi, everyone! I've got a question, real quick: T-Rex: WHY HASN'T FACEBOOK DIED YET?? T-Rex: There used to be an agreement: we'd all sign up for something like Orkut or MySpace or Friendster or what have you, and then in a few years we'd all move on and start fresh somewhere new. DONE. And it was great! If you fell out with someone, you didn't have to watch friendships wither and die! You just BLEW THE WHOLE THING UP. Utahraptor: FACEBOOK HAS TO DIE. T-Rex: Right?! It's OVERDUE to die! T-Rex: But it WON'T, so instead I'm here having to actually decide "this friendship is over and I no longer wish to participate in it". You know what's way better? FORGETTING ABOUT SOMEONE UNTIL A DECADE LATER WHEN YOU THINK "HEY WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT GUY??" God! Narrator: ONE DECADE LATER: Off panel: Hey, whatever happened to - T-Rex: WE'RE FACEBOOK FRIENDS, HE POSTS RACIST MEMES WITH SPELLING MISTAKES, THAT'S ABOUT IT Off panel: Oh. Cool. T-Rex (punchline): THANKS I HATE IT

KALE TRUSTED BANANA AND THIS IS HOW BANANA TREATS KALE?? no wonder they go together so poorly in this dish, which is what i can only assume at one point was supposed to be a salad

Narrator: T-REX HAS JUST TRIED CHOCOLATE AND PEANUT BUTTER TOGETHER: T-Rex: This - this combination of flavours! It's DELICIOUS! T-Rex: I NEED TO TELL EVERYONE! T-Rex: Dromiceiomimus, you gotta try this flavour combo I stumbled across after witnessing a shipping truck collision (one which, while non-fatal, still resulted in what I can only assume will be written off as a large loss of product): chocolate AND peanut butter! T-Rex: TOGETHER! Dromiceiomimus: I've had it, yeah! It's good! Utahraptor: It's one of the MOST famous flavour combinations in our culture, T-Rex! T-Rex: Nobody told me! Utahraptor: Really? Because I've often remarked that WE'RE like chocolate and peanut butter, in that we go together well. T-Rex: Again: news to me. I thought we were like kale and banana. Utahraptor: In that...? T-Rex (punchline): In that KALE WOULD'VE TOLD BANANA ABOUT CHOCOLATE AND PEANUT BUTTER SOONER

I remind the reader constantly that many in this story are SECRETLY robot invaders, and then they think "Wow, I wonder if that will pay off soon". It does not.

T-Rex: The year: 1775. The place: America. Surprise: robots have just invaded! Double surprise: TWO OF THEM HAVE FALLEN IN LOVE DURING THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON! Is one a nurse while the other a wounded soldier? YES. T-Rex: Is their love forbidden but they can't help themselves in pursuing it? ALSO YES. Dromiceiomimus: Don't the non-robots notice these robots? T-Rex: Ah. No, they look exactly like everyone else. Also, they behave like everyone else too. Dromiceiomimus: So they are, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from us. T-Rex: Yes. But: they're ROBOTS. Utahraptor: Sounds like a heartfelt tale of romance during a nation's infancy to me! T-Rex: No! It's SCIENCE FICTION. T-Rex: Rest assured, I remind the reader constantly that many in this story are SECRETLY robot invaders. Utahraptor: I think you want to write a sincere romance, but that TERRIFIES you, so you insist on these scifi trappings. Embrace your emotions, T-Rex! T-Rex: UTAHRAPTOR!! THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE T-Rex (punchline): ERROR 5x290F

and then PRACTICE HARDER

T-Rex: Want to better yourself each and every day? Sure you do! So what are you waiting for?? T-Rex: MASTER A NEW SKILL ALREADY! T-Rex: And before you say "mastering skills is hard, it takes literally WEEKS to figure out how to paint something like the Sistine Chapel, and possibly even longer??" let me say: you are defining skills TOO NARROWLY. Smaller things are skills too! For example, *I* am a master of breathing air without dying. I do it BASICALLY 24/7. Yeah. It's no big deal for me. Utahraptor: I've seen you choke on your own saliva while attempting to breathe air. T-Rex: Yes! In the PAST. T-Rex: But since then I've been practicing LITERALLY NON-STOP, and now I'm better at it. Ask me how my "squeeze my heart to pump blood through my body" practice has been going. Utahraptor: How's it been going? T-Rex: PRETTY GREAT! T-Rex: I hereby declare everyone hearing these words a MASTER of breathing and pumping blood, except those few who are dying from suffocation or heart failure as I speak. To them I say: WHAT ARE YOU DOING, CALL AN AMBULANCE T-Rex (punchline): AHHHHHHHHHH

the only alternative is that the world is an unscripted sequence of events with no coherent or discernible narrative arc and may I just say: THANKS BUT NO THANKS??

Narrator: COMPRESSED LITERATURE COMICS today's literature: Narrator: THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU T-Rex: One day a dude lands on an island run by a biologist specializing in vivisection! T-Rex: The other "people" there are weirdly furry and animal-like, which leads the dude to think "Wow, I wonder if this doctor, who specializes in grafting different animal parts together, is using now-discredited ideas from the 1800s of how that works (because this is when this story was written) to suppress the 'bestial' aspects of animals and thereby 'elevate' them to our level??" and SURPRISE, that's what's happening. Utahraptor: And then things go wrong and the animals turn against their masters? T-Rex: YOU KNOW IT! T-Rex: It's Jurassic Park, but HERE animals are created by a dino named "Dr. Moreau" in the PRESENT, rather than the science fiction of dinosaurs being created by humans in the distant future under the supposition that we all go extinct in some sort of "catastrophic event"?? Hah! I'd like to see THAT! Narrator: LATER: T-Rex: Dear audio diary: great news! I keep setting up ironic comeuppance but it keeps not happening so I can only assume we live forever?? T-Rex (punchline): So, that's nice

I invite you to join me; we meet on Wednesdays

T-Rex: Batman, who was the best at solving crimes, scowled. His mask was molded into a permanent scary scowl so criminals would be spooked, but he was scowling "IRL" under the mask too. T-Rex: Someone was committing crimes in Gotham City again!! T-Rex: "This is SPECIFICALLY what I didn't want criminals to do", Batman muttered as he ran across the rooftops. "And yet, despite all I do, people are still making crimes happen. For crying out loud." He called his buddy Superman for advice, but Superman was saying the same thing! "I have laser vision and people are still committing crimes!" he said. Utahraptor: "I gotta go fight 'em, we'll talk later!" T-Rex: Batman heard the line go dead and brooded pretty hard. T-Rex: He grappled with a dark thought: if even a man who could THROW YOU INTO THE SUN wasn't stopping people from committing crimes, then could it be there was NOTHING in our essential nature AGAINST criminality? Could his war on crime be as futile as a war on EATING, a war on BREATHING?? T-Rex: "No," said Batman, "that's crazy", and then he arrested every criminal and made them promise to try harder to be good. Off panel: Batman is incredible. T-Rex (punchline): Yes, I love him for this and also many other reasons.

ATTENTION TEENS! LISTEN TO SENIOR CITIZENS, THEY HAVE grown up in a world without internet and therefore have very little context for the day-to-day reality of being a teen which has changed significantly over the past decade given your now global reach online but they are more than eager to give what they think is ALSO REALLY GOOD ADVICE

T-Rex: Teens: you want to go viral, right? Yeah you do. You lie in bed all night thinking "what are these new feelings I have, what's happening with my changing body, and how do I go friggin' viral??" TEENS: I have the answer. T-Rex: Put it in your will, teens! T-Rex: Check it out: "Whomsoever, in the space of one week after the announcement of this contest, gets the most retweets of a tweet praising me, shall get all my mad riches". DONE. Before you know it, people will be seeing "[YOUR NAME HERE] rules, RT if you agree" EVERYWHERE. T-Rex: It's what I'm gonna do, teens! Believe me: I am a former teen myself!! Utahraptor: But then you'll be dead and won't be around to enjoy the praise! T-Rex: Ah, but that's the best part! T-Rex: YOU FAKE YOUR DEATH. Then you return, and since you're alive the contest is nullified! But then in a twist the disgruntled people realize that if they kill you the will would go into effect again, so they all try to kill you, and your life segues into Die Hard so slowly you barely even notice. T-Rex (punchline): ATTENTION TEENS! LISTEN TO YOUR ELDERS, WE HAVE [tiny] ideas for things that would be amazing if they happened to someone else and also [end tiny] REALLY GOOD ADVICE!

later, after even more research: oh wait nevermind hah hah this is pretty cool

T-Rex: Adults: you want to be able to achieve your investment goals in the third quarter this fiscal, right? Admit it: yeah you do. It's all you think about. T-Rex: Adults love third quarter investment goals! T-Rex: Well GOOD NEWS, adults: I am here with the secret. To achieve your third quarter investment goals, simply - Dromiceiomimus: - realize that you are all trapped within a capitalist system in which your only choices are to sell your labour or to profit off the labour of others, leaving you complicit in a network of exploitation?? T-Rex: I, uh - T-Rex: I was gonna say "buy low sell high" Utahraptor: "Buy low sell high"? THAT'S your investment advice? T-Rex: It's good advice! Utahraptor: Not if I'm gonna meet my third quarter investment goals THIS fiscal! I'm in deep, T-Rex! I'm looking at a margin account with an APR of at least 2 points above prime if I'm gonna get anywhere CLOSE to equity! T-Rex: Okay, OBVIOUSLY I only understood some of those words!! Narrator: LATER, AFTER MUCH RESEARCH: T-Rex (punchline): I UNDERSTAND MORE OF THE WORDS NOW BUT WISH I DIDN'T; HOW DARE YOU FILL MY BEAUTIFUL MIND WITH THIS

it's like people having pejorative stereotypes about skeletons. BAD NEWS, BOYOS: y'all gonna be a skeleton one day. you should talk about how great skeletons are instead of making jokes about how they all use their ribs as xylophones, which only a small percentage do, and that's their choice which we should respect

T-Rex: Seniors: you want hard candy, right? I don't know much about seniors but it's my understanding that you sure do love hard candies! Hah! T-Rex: ZING ON SENIORS, AM I RIGHT?? God: T-REX YOU ARE SOMEONE WHO IDENTIFIES AS A FORMER TEEN YES T-Rex: That's my number! God: THEN YOU SHOULD ALSO REALIZE THAT AS MUCH AS YOU ARE A FORMER TEEN God: YOU ARE ALSO God: BRACE YOURSELF God: A FUTURE SENIOR T-Rex: GASP T-Rex: I AM gonna be a senior one day! Utahraptor: I could've told you that! T-Rex: But - Utahraptor, that means we need to CHANGE society to END pejorative stereotypes about seniors, and we need to do it NOW! When we're old, I need people to think I'm cool, not some punchline for - for kids these days! Utahraptor: T-REX. YOU JUST SAID "KIDS THESE DAYS". IT'S ALREADY BEGUN. Narrator: YEARS LATER: T-Rex: I don't know what I was complaining about: hard candy is delicious. IT'S LITERAL FRIGGIN' CANDY! T-Rex (punchline): CLEARLY it rules

it could be YOU. probably not though, because who is refueling or recharging that self-driving car? it wouldn't work, unless the car knew to pull into automated full-serve stations that used contactless payments (a technology which already exists) to transfer funds, in which case, yes, a self-driving car could drive around a dead body almost indefinitely, and even be used to HIDE a recently murdered body by putting it in a self-driving car and sending it off to drive around the country for years. well bye

T-Rex: Want to be the first person to discover a new continent? SORRY, TOO SLOW. We all know where they're all at already. T-Rex: Maybe try being born 20,000 years ago next time?? T-Rex: First person to name a country after themselves? ALREADY DONE. First person to visit the moon? SORRY, THAT'S TAKEN TOO. First person to say "That's what she said" in such a way to suggest that the unnamed "she" was engaged in sexual congress with someone? MY FRIEND, YOU ARE EXTREMELY TOO LATE. Utahraptor: So there's no firsts left and we're all left with second place. T-Rex: No, there's still lots! T-Rex: Who will be the first to be run over by a self-driving car? Who will be first to die INSIDE one? Who will be first to die inside one on a long road trip and nobody notices and the car drives around for weeks before someone looks over in traffic and sees the horrible decaying corpse behind the wheel?? T-Rex: In conclusion: your future IS full of promise!! T-Rex (punchline): Well bye

NOW THE FUTURE SUCKS AND EVERYONE'S POOPING LIKE A REGULAR PERSON SO WHAT EVEN WAS THE *POINT* OF 15,000 YEARS OF CIVILIZATION

T-Rex: It's the future! So GUESS WHAT?? T-Rex: All the food you want is teleported directly into your belly! T-Rex: "Aha," you say, "but what about the natural pleasures of eating?". You can do that still, if you want! In fact, you can eat as much as you like, and any extra will be teleported - you guessed it - out of your belly. And yes, for the businessperson on the go, you no longer have to waste precious hours pooping! You just beam that OUT instead! Utahraptor: Where does the poop go? T-Rex: Teleported directly into the sun, obvs. Utahraptor: So with that technology, couldn't terrorists run that in reverse and teleport stellar material directly to EARTH, where the sudden release from unimaginable solar pressure would cause an explosion with the force of a hundred atom bombs? T-Rex: ... T-Rex: It's the future! Teleportation technology isn't used and we all have to poop out of our boring ol' butts. HAPPY, UTAHRAPTOR? Off panel: Sociological problems resisting technological solutions make me sad, so not really. T-Rex: WELL T-Rex (punchline): ME NEITHER, TO BE HONEST

when i read graphical novels i like to pair them with a small treat: some minor chocolate indulgence such as a Kit Katherine or one of Timothy Tam's eponymous bars.

Narrator: T-REX THE INTELLECTUAL Off panel: Yeah, I'll have a Big Mac. T-Rex: And I too shall partake of an identical sandwich... T-Rex: One similarly Large Macmillan, if you please! Narrator: LATER: Dromiceiomimus: It's cold out today, so I'm gonna wear my long johns. T-Rex: Indeed, good Dromiceiomimus, indeed. I too shall join you in donning my interminable jonathans. Narrator: LATER: T-Rex: And to the debate over "Sex Ed In Schools", I believe Sexual Edmund should be kept far away! Utahraptor: DUDE. Utahraptor: The intellectual bit is a LI'L tired. T-Rex: Indeed, I too am fatigued. I shall retire and recover my energy, perhaps by reading some comical books. Utahraptor: That's not what comics are called. T-Rex: Of course, how foolish of me. I meant to say that I will soon enjoy some graphical novels. Narrator: LATER: T-Rex: Yes, these graphical novels are QUITE amusing! I daresay I like Peanut's "Peppermint Patricia" best, tied only with Marvel's Anthony Man! Off panel: T-REX Off panel (punchline): I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU CALLED ME UP ON SPEAKERPHONE JUST TO MAKE SURE I HEARD THIS

hi, it's me ryan, the author of this comic. just wanted to drop by to say: title is actually perfect. thanks

T-Rex: Petey-O, who was a failed writer and not JUST because of his name, stared at his computer screen in frustration. This was his last chance. If he didn't write a great story, TODAY... then he would lose EVERYTHING. T-Rex: Suddenly, words began to appear on the screen! T-Rex: Petey-O looked around the coffeeshop he was in. Nobody was reacting. He looked at the keyboard. He definitely wasn't typing on his laptop. There was only one explanation: there was a higher force in the universe, and it was taking pity on him! He stared in joy as the words began. "Once upon a time," he read as the words appeared one by one, "there was a -" Utahraptor: "uninformed computer user who had allowed overseas scammers to take control of his machine." T-Rex: OH NO Utahraptor: "Send us $600 in the next half hour," the words demanded, "or we will delete all your files". T-Rex: Well FRIG, Utahraptor. "GUESS THERE'S NO MAGIC, JUST STRANGERS TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE," said Petey-O, slamming the laptop shut. "OH WELL, NOW IT'S TIME FOR OL' PETEY-O TO DIE". Off panel: Wait, T-Rex! "Later on, Petey-O and the hacker fell in love and worked together on a novel about their relationship... called '(A)bort, (R)etry... (L)OVE??'" T-Rex: PETEY-O IS SAVED!! T-Rex (punchline): TITLE COULD USE SOME WORK THOUGH

does commissioner gordon run the daycare? please. OBVIOUSLY COMMISSIONER GORDON RUNS THE DAYCARE

T-Rex: It was midnight, and Bruce Wayne was almost indistinguishable from darkness. He melted into the shadows with ease as he crawled through the unfamiliar terrain, his senses alert. He had almost reached his target... T-Rex: ...and then he pooped his pants and cried! T-Rex: WHAT THE HECK? Dromiceiomimus: In this story, is Bruce Wayne a newborn baby? T-Rex: Yes, Bruce Wayne is a newborn baby in this story. As you probably guessed, he was in a dark room, exploring his new baby bed. T-Rex: Poopy Pants Baby Bruce is the character find of 2018, Dromiceiomimus. Utahraptor: Is there a Baby Joker? A Baby Poison Ivy? A Baby Two-Face? T-Rex: OBVIOUSLY THERE ARE. T-Rex: But they don't star here! Millions live in Gotham, and we're supposed to buy that they all end up at the same daycare? Where one kid laughs all the time while another whispers to plants, and a third kid keeps ALMOST but not quite getting half his face injured? Where there's one little girl who just loves cats? T-Rex: And another who's a little TOO into clay and keeps rubbing it on his face... and another who loves singing the "cold doesn't bother me anyway" bit from Frozen... T-Rex: ...Huh. T-Rex (punchline): So THIS is what having the greatest idea of your life feels like

NON-CANON! SUPER ULTIMATE NON-CANON x2 HAS BEEN ACHIEVED

T-Rex: [stops dreaming] T-Rex: Whoah! WHOAH! T-Rex: Okay: THAT was the craziest dream, cats and kittens! T-Rex: There was time travel and friendship and FEELINGS and problems with society and BATMAN showed up way more often than you might expect and I think at one point a spooky skeleton showed up? Dromiceiomimus: Another one of your incredibly compressed and plot-heavy dreams, Antonio Xavier Kavalier III? T-Rex: You know it! It felt like... ALMOST EIGHT YEARS worth of dreams!! Utahraptor: EIGHT years this time?! T-Rex: Not a word of lie, Doctor Professor Jim Junior! Utahraptor: Well, as you know, HERE IN REALITY only one night has passed, which means any bad things that may have happened over the past almost eight years can still be foreseen and avoided by us! In comparison, our lives are still pristine and unspoiled!! T-Rex: Love it. LOVE IT. T-Rex: Can't wait to hear how that works out for you T-Rex (punchline): [starts dreaming]

among the greatest open question of our time are "does p=np", "why does time have a direction", and "what if jery get ipad"

T-Rex: Remember when everyone was disappointed with hippies, because when they grew up and got positions of power they didn't usher in a new era of universal love and peace, MUCH LESS A FULL AGE OF AQUARIUS, and things are still bad? T-Rex: WELL GUESS WHAT? LOOKS LIKE WE MESSED UP TOO!! T-Rex: People in our generation are getting power now, and what have we changed? I'll tell you what we've changed: we've brought back all the TV shows we enjoyed when we were younger. IS THIS REALLY GOING TO BE OUR LEGACY?? "Samurai Pizza Cats, but not as good"? "Murphy Brown, but now she works for a website"? "SEINFELD, BUT NOW JERRY GET IPAD"? Utahraptor: That last one sounds AMAZING. T-Rex: Okay, yes, obviously it is. T-Rex: But the others! It's just you hope your generation will be the ones to really fix the world, you know? And then your people start getting power and nobody's overthrowing nothin'. We're just - bringing back OLD CARTOONS. And not even "The Real Ghostbusters", which was THE BEST and which I already have my own modern casting fo-- T-Rex: --oh dang it; I'm part of the problem too. T-Rex: *sigh* T-Rex (punchline): And the worst part is, I have no idea who I'm gonna call

when it comes to precious bodily fluids, there are only winners and losers. AND I PLAY TO WIN

T-Rex: Hey! Are you interested in pressing your lips against the lips of another person with lips? Then you need to know... Narrator: HOW Narrator: TO Narrator: KISS T-Rex: There are three types of kisses: friend kisses to say "why hello there", romance kisses to say "why HELLO there", and legal kisses to say "why hello there, I agree to exchange 55% of my shares for distribution in kind of yours". The good news is that these kisses are all pretty common and generally interchangeable, so you just need one set of tips to cover all three! Utahraptor: And those tips are...? T-Rex: Being disseminated now, hot lips! T-Rex: Tip 1: Employ as much pressure as you use when pushing a kitchen drawer shut using only your lips. Tip 2: Never forget that kissing is the act of tasting the bacteria-rich end of someone else's digestive tract. Tip 3: Enjoy! Utahraptor: Oh. Oh no. Off panel: Now I never want to kiss anyone ever again. T-Rex: Oh I forgot Tip 4: Make sure you get as good as you give in any fluid exchange! T-Rex (punchline): DON'T GET RIPPED OFF!!