Webcomic Creator Interview: Jimmy Grist of Dinosaur Kid

Dinosaur Kid is a webcomic by Jimmy Grist about, what else but a dinosaur child. Along with his friend Octopus Kid, DK goes to school and get into all sorts of childhood adventures. Everything from school projects to playing in the snow to jokes about tiny arms are featured in Dinosaur Kid. With a style that’s part Calvin and Hobbes and another part Rocko’s Modern Life, the comic is fun and energetic, with a style that kids will love. Jimmy started the comic just a few months ago and was kind enough to answer a few questions about how Dinosaur Kid and how webcomics have treated him so far.

Leo Johnson: To start with, what is it that you do when you’re not making webcomics?

Jimmy Grist: I’m finishing an MFA in Creative Writing, which has been a lot of fun, but isn’t one of those degrees that gets you a job. It’s about learning a skill, then going out there on your own and using it in your personal time while you do some really mundane 9-5 job just to get benefits. I check out a lot of graphic stuff from my local library, which is great, and I like keeping up to date on world news, too. One of my favorite things is when nearby movie theaters show the classics I never got to see on the big screen; I saw Akira a few weeks ago, and this weekend the same place is showing The Land Before Time (which is really appropriate, talking about a little dinosaur webcomic).

LJ: Pretend we’ve never heard of Dinosaur Kid. What’s your elevator pitch?

JG: I probably don’t have to pretend! Dinosaur Kid’s a pretty young webcomic about a kid who’s a dinosaur. He goes to school, he learns stuff, he has meaningful kidventures. His best friend is Octopus Kid. It updates on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The comic’s still taking shape, but right now it’s running in short “episodes” that last 5-8 pages.

LJ: What made Dinosaur Kid a great character to build the strip around? Why a dinosaur?

JG: Honestly, the character is just what I had at the time that I decided to start a webcomic. That said, now that things are rolling, I’ve learned more and more about who he is. Dinosaurs are popular and fun to draw, obviously, but I like writing about Dinosaur Kid because he’s growing into a complicated little guy. He can be ferocious in a 5-year-old way, with those big teeth, but at the same time, he’s very inadequate and vulnerable with those tiny arms and that bell-shaped body. More often than not, he’s totally at peace with the world. His heart’s a lot bigger than his brain.

LJ: Dinosaur Kid is best friends with Octopus Kid. What makes an octopus and a dinosaur such a good team?

JG: Octopus Kid is a great foil for D.K. She has plenty of arms and a massive brain, but sometimes lacks D.K.’s innocence or compassion. They see the world in completely different ways, but neither would know what to do without the other one. And when she perches atop his head, they become an unstoppable eight-armed thunder-legged superforce. (Someday, I will make a comic where they team up to destroy a pinata.)

LJ: What made you initially decide to do a webcomic?

JG: I’ve always been a Calvin and Hobbes fan, way back into elementary school. In high school I started reading webcomics like Penny Arcade and Nothing Nice to Say. When I was 17 I made a bad Perry Bible Fellowship knockoff and updated it daily for a full month, then ran out of steam and quit because I felt like I was terrible. I wanted to it, but I wanted to be good. The problem was that I wasn’t getting any better after I quit, and it took me about 5 years to realize that.

I also have to say, I got a big motivator when I applied to be on Penny Arcade’s “Strip Search,” a webcomic-based reality competition between 12 different artists. I didn’t get onto the show, but I got much further in the application process than I ever would’ve expected by showing off the first 10 or so strips of Dinsoaur Kid. That was really encouraging, and it made me want to see how much more I could improve.

LJ: Describe the process of creating the comic a bit. What does it take to get an idea from your brain on to the page?

JG: I come up with general plot developments first. I might just number 1-5 and put a plot-point on each one, knowing that each plot point will turn into one page of the comic. (For example, “1 – D.K. hears the ice cream truck. 2 – D.K. tries to order, finds out he doesn’t have enough money. 3 – D.K. runs inside and gets money from T-Rex Dad.” etc.) Then I just draw a couple of thumbnails to figure out what the panels will look like, scrawling dialogue in the margins to figure out what’s being said. I try to end each page with a punchline, since that’s what people expect and it offers a sense of miniature closure, but I also like putting internal jokes or oddities into the middle panels. (Like once when I made D.K. remark early on a page, “This cocoa tastes like melted chocolate.”)

It doesn’t take long to figure all of that out. I pencil it on bristol board, then ink it with a couple of different pens. The inking is what takes me forever, usually. But time passes quickly because I like it, and because I usually have an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on in the corner of the room. I made a process post here that goes into more detail.

LJ: What’s been your favorite strip/page to create so far?

JG: #28. #37 is a close second for all the superpower pictures, but it doesn’t have the environmental detail of the other one.

LJ: What makes your comic different from all the others on the internet?

JG: The fact that it’s mine, I suppose. No one thing about it is unique, but a couple of things together help it stand out. It’s done with pen and paper, it’s friendly for all ages, and it’s not going to be ruthlessly merchandised. I don’t want to sell you t-shirts.

LJ: What’s been your biggest surprise or discovery since you started the comic?

JG: That was probably when I was in the Artist’s Alley at Planet Comicon in Kansas City a few weekends ago. I didn’t expect anyone to commission me, but a handful of people did, and the surprise for me was learning that I could produce decent work in a short amount of time without much notice.

OH, and just now, when I put my name into Google Image Search and saw a bunch of my comics come up as the foremost results.

LJ: What do you see in the future for the comic?

JG: The longer I do it, the better it’ll get. The plan right now is to keep doing it. If I can learn to work faster, I would love to have color in the comic — but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. I also want to try and write about really important things in a simple, accessible way. Maybe this is weird or maybe it’s part of maturing, but sometimes I just think of a difficult subject and ask myself, “How would I explain this to a kid?” Like prejudice, for example. How do you explain prejudice to a kid? Well, maybe I can do it with comics eventually.

LJ: Where else can you be found on the vastness of the internet?

JG: Actually, Dinosaur Kid is on my personal website, so jimmygrist.net is the best place to go. The site has a list of some short story publications, some of which are online, but I’m more and more embarrassed of most of those as time goes by. The other place to find me is on Twitter, @JimmyGrist. Or, if you’re trying to spot me in the wild, you will probably catch me listening to Nujabes on YouTube.

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If you like what you hear about Dinosaur Kid, be sure to check it out every Wednesday and Saturday. As always, if there is a creator you would like to see interviewed, feel free to leave a comment or let us know on Twitter.

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