Clever comics bring out the doppelganger in Web critic

Sometimes I like to feel superior to others, just because I say so. This is when a different Steve comes out.

This other Steve likes music you haven’t heard of. If you have heard of it, he doesn’t like it anymore. This Steve tells jokes only he gets. This Steve likes polysyllabic words when more concise ones would be more suitable.

This Steve reads comics that make him think.

There are some strips online that I’ve found that go beyond the lowest common denominator and provide something for the other Steve.

One of these is Dinosaur Comics.

Dinosaur Comics is living proof that anything can be found on the Internet. For the past three years creator Ryan North has been putting out a comic every weekday, using the exact same crappy dinosaur clip art images in the exact same order.

Despite sounding like a total cop out, Dinosaur Comic is one of the most vibrant strips I’ve found. The dialogue is strange, varied and almost always thought provoking, not to mention entertaining.

The main character T-Rex and his friend Utahraptor and Dromiceiomimus tackle topics ranging from the moral consequences of time travel to the possibilities of philosophical zombies.

There’s nothing like the looks you get when you explain that you learned the fascinating new theory you just told your friends from a comic strip.

Dinosaur Comics, while deep and provocative, is usually perfectly clean and can be found at www.qwantz.com. I don’t know why, but that’s where it is.

Another strip that keeps me thinking is Questionable Content. Rather than taking on the purpose of life, QC deals with a much more complicated topic: Real world relationships.

For more than 600 strips, Questionable Content has been following the life of Marten Reed, an average indie kid with a mostly platonic female roommate and a talking robot pet.

Marten is an everyman hero, just trying to get by in the crazy world in a smooth and organized fashion. Unfortunately for him, everyday drama between him and all his friends prevents this from happening.

It’s all stuff that I could easily see happening between people I know. I feel like an old woman watching a soap opera sometimes when I read it.

And I’m not ashamed to admit that I like it.

Questionable Content, by Jeph Jaques, can be found at www.questionablecontent.net and often lives up to its name. Do us both a favor and only check it out if you’re not bothered by occasional swearing and/or sexual references.

Steve Shinney is a junior majoring in computer science. Comments can be sent to him at

steveshinney@cc.usu.edu.