Enlarge / Ryan North, creator of Dinosaur Comics, offers a step-by-step guide to becoming the next Lex Luthor in his new book, How To Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain. (credit: Ryan North, tweaked by Aurich Lawson)
Are you a fan of superhero comics who identifies more with the Big Bad? Do you dream of riding around on your own cloned dinosaur and kicking back after a long day’s evil-doing in your floating, secret supervillain base? Good news: Ryan North has got you covered. He’s the author of a new book called How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain, and there’s frankly nobody better qualified to guide the reader through a step-by-step process toward world domination.
North is something of a webcomic pioneer, having started Dinosaur Comics (aka Qwantz) way back in 2003. The strip’s signature six panels are the same every time, consisting of simple dinosaur clip art that North found on a CD; only the text changes. T-Rex is the main character, with Utahraptor appearing as a comic foil in the fourth and fifth panels. A third dinosaur, Dromiceiomimus, is featured in the third panel. North has said he did it this way because he can’t draw. It’s been a staple of nerdy webcomics ever since.
That early success led to North becoming the writer for several Marvel Comics series, most notably the Eisner Award-winning The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (a personal favorite) and Jughead. It was only a matter of time before he wrote his first popular science book: the delightfully irreverent (and best-selling) How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler. In each chapter, North demonstrated how the reader could invent any number of modern conveniences from first principles, as well as answering the burning question of whether it’s possible to tame a giant wombat.
Read 30 remaining paragraphs | Comments
