Ryan North (born October 20, 1980) is a Canadian writer and computer programmer. He is the creator and author of ''

Dinosaur Comics ''Dinosaur Comics'' is a constrained webcomic by Canadian writer Ryan North. It is also known as "Qwantz", after the site's domain name, "qwantz.com". The first comic was posted on February 1, 2003, although there were earlier prototypes. ''Di ...

'', and has written for the comic series of ''

Adventure Time ''Adventure Time'' is an American fantasy animated television series created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. The series follows the adventures of a boy named Finn ( Jeremy Shada) and ...

'' and

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Comics'' in 19 ...

' '' The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl''. His works have won multiple

Eisner Awards The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

and Harvey Awards and made ''New York Times'' Bestseller lists.

Comics

Webcomics

North started the webcomic ''

'' in 2003, during the last year of his undergraduate degree. ''Dinosaur Comics'' is a fixed-art webcomic which uses the same base art for every strip. North has produced over 3,500 strips. ''Dinosaur Comics'' was named one of the best webcomics of 2004 and 2005 by The Webcomics Examiner. '' Wired'' listed ''Dinosaur Comics'' as one of "Five Webcomics You Can Share With Your Kids" and '' PC Magazine'' included the comic in its "10 Wicked Awesome Webcomics" list. Cracked.com named ''Dinosaur Comics'' one of the 8 funniest webcomics on the internet. In 2005, it won "Outstanding Anthropomorphic Comic" in the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards. As well as ''Dinosaur Comics'', North also created ''Whispered Apologies'', a site where users could submit comic art without text and others would write text to match the art. Canada's '' The Globe and Mail'' described North as a "pioneering webcomic creator".

Printed comics and graphic novels

North was the writer of the ''

'' comic book series from 2012 to 2014. In 2013 the series won an

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

(Best Publication for Kids) and a

Harvey Award The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be the successor to the Kirby Awards that we ...

(Best Original Graphic Publication For Younger Readers). North has written for several

series, including '' The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Power Pack'', and ''Inhumans: Once and Future Kings''. On January 21, 2013, Shiftylook.com launched ''Galaga'', a comic written by North and illustrated by Christopher Hastings and colored by Anthony Clark, the creators of '' The Adventures of Dr. McNinja''. The comic is based on the 1981 arcade shooter of the same name. On July 21, 2017, two of North's projects were awarded

: "Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17)" for ''The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl'' (with Erica Henderson), and "Best Humor Publication" for '' Jughead'' (with

Chip Zdarsky Steve Murray (born December 21, 1975), known by the pen-name Chip Zdarsky, is a Canadian comic book artist and writer, journalist, illustrator and designer. He has also used the pseudonym Todd Diamonte. He worked for ''National Post'' for over a ...

, Henderson, and Derek Charm). On September 15, 2020, Archaia published a graphic novel adaptation of

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...

's Slaughterhouse-Five, which was adapted by North and illustrated by Albert Monteys. In July 2022, North announced two upcoming comics projects via his newsletter. The first is ''Star Trek: Lower Decks'' —a

limited series Limited series may refer to: *Limited series, individual storylines within an anthology series *Limited series, a particular run of collectables, usually individually numbered * Limited series (comics), a comics series with a predetermined number ...

based on the animated series of the same name—with artist Chris Fenoglio; the first issue is scheduled to be published in September 2022 by

IDW Publishing IDW Publishing is an American publisher of comic books, graphic novels, art books, and comic strip collections. It was founded in 1999 as the publishing division of Idea and Design Works, LLC (IDW), itself formed in 1999, and is regularly re ...

. The second is a YA graphic novel, titled ''Danger and Other Unknown Risks,'' with artist Henderson; North and Henderson were co-creators on ''Squirrel Girl''. This graphic novel is described as a "dystopian fantasy" and is scheduled to be published in April 2023 by Penguin Teen. In November 2022, North launched a new volume of

Fantastic Four The Fantastic Four is a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The team debuted in '' The Fantastic Four'' #1 ( cover dated Nov. 1961), helping usher in a new level of realism in the medium. It was the first ...

with artist Iban Coello.

Webcomic tools

North created three tools to aid webcomic authors: Oh No Robot, a webcomic transcription tool that creates searchable text databases for comics; RSSpect, a method of creating

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

feeds for websites; and Project Wonderful, a pay-per-day

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition e ...

-based ad serving system. The first two were free, whereas the last took 25% of each sale. Only Oh No Robot remains.

Books and other writing

During his academic career, North co-authored three papers on computational linguistics. Some of North's original comedy writing appears on the website Madhouse, including ''Robot Erotica,'' and prank emails such as attempts to stop other people named "Ryan North" from using his name. In November 2006, Ryan North created the site ''Every Topic in the Universe Except Chickens'', which purports to provide a solution to vandalism on Wikipedia, in that it encourages vandals to vandalize only the article on

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domestication, domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey junglefowl, grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster ...

s: "...instead of vandalizing Wikipedia in general, we all just vandalize the chicken article." North reasoned that it was worth trading the reliability of the chicken article if it meant freeing the rest of the encyclopedia from the threat of vandalism because "Dudes already know about chickens." The site received media attention. A collection of short stories titled '' Machine of Death'' was released October 2010 through Bearstache Books. The book, featuring stories and illustrations by various authors and artists, was based on a ''

'' comic by North of December 5, 2005, with the premise of a machine that predicts the manner of a person's death accurately but in a difficult to understand manner. North was one of its editors, and contributed one of the stories. ''Machine of Death'' reached #1 on Amazon.com, beating Glenn Beck and drawing criticism from him as exemplifying a "liberal culture of death". In November 2012, North launched a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, K ...

project to fund a book entitled '' To Be or Not to Be: That Is the Adventure'', a retelling of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depi ...

'' modelled on Choose Your Own Adventure novels. The project raised more than six times its $20,000 goal in less than a week, and closed on December 22, 2012 having raised $580,905, nearly thirty times their original goal, and a record for a ''Kickstarter'' publishing project at that time. The book allows readers to take the role of

, Ophelia or

Hamlet's father ''Hamlet's Father'' is a 2008 novella by Orson Scott Card, which retells William Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'' in modernist prose, and which makes several changes to the characters' motivations and backstory. It has drawn substantial criticism for it ...

and make their own choices throughout the story; the latter characters, as well as over 100 colour illustrations by a range of artists, were added to the book as funding increased. The book made a New York Times Bestseller list. In 2016, Ryan published a similar book titled ''Romeo and/or Juliet''. There are 46,012,475,909,287,476 possible adventures in it. The book received generally positive coverage. In 2018, Riverhead Books published Ryan North's "

How To Invent Everything How may refer to: * How (greeting), a word used in some misrepresentations of Native American/First Nations speech * How, an interrogative word in English grammar Art and entertainment Literature * ''How'' (book), a 2007 book by Dov Seidma ...

: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveller": a nonfiction guide to technology based around the fictional premise of a time machine stranding the reader in the past. It was named one of NPR's and BBC Science Focus's Best Books of 2018. In 2019, North helped develop the story and writing for an iOS game app called AVO! by Playdeo Limited North wrote the 2021 action-adventure video game '' Lost in Random'', published by Electronic Arts. In April 2022, North was the writer for the six-episode

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

series ''Marvel's Squirrel Girl: The Unbeatable Radio Show'' which is a direct continuation of the comic series he wrote; the series is produced by Radio Point, directed by Giovanna Sardelli and stars Milana Vayntrub as Squirrel Girl.

Awards

, - , rowspan=4, 2017 , '' The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl'' ,

: Best Publication for Teens (ages 13–17) , , Illustrated by Erica Henderson , - , '' Jughead'' , Eisner Award: Best Humor Publication , , Created by

, North, Erica Henderson, and Derek Charm , - , ''Romeo and/or Juliet: A Choosable-Path Adventure'' , Alex Award , , , - , (multiple comics) , Joe Shuster Award: Outstanding Writer , , , - , rowspan=2, 2016 , '' The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl'' ,

: Best New Series , , Illustrated by Erica Henderson , - , (multiple comics) , Joe Shuster Award: Outstanding Writer , , , - , rowspan=2, 2015 , (multiple comics) , Joe Shuster Award: Outstanding Writer , , , - , '' The Midas Flesh'' , Joe Shuster Award: The Dragon Award (Comics for Kids) , , , - , rowspan=3, 2014 , ''Adventure Time'' , Harvey Awards: Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers , , , - , ''Adventure Time'' , Harvey Awards: Special Award for Humor , , , - , (multiple comics) , Joe Shuster Award: Outstanding Writer , , , - , rowspan=6, 2013 , ''Adventure Time'' , Eisner Award: Best Publication for Kids (ages 8–12) , , , - , ''Adventure Time'' , Harvey Awards: Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers , , , - , ''Adventure Time'' , Harvey Awards: Special Award for Humor , , , - , ''Adventure Time'' , Eisner Award: Best New Series , , , - , ''Adventure Time'' , Eisner Award: Best Humor Publication , , , - , ''Adventure Time'' , Sushter Awards: Outstanding Writer , , , - , 2005 , ''

'' , Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards: Outstanding Anthropomorphic Comic , , In the same year, ''Dinosaur Comics'' was also nominated for Outstanding Writing, Outstanding Comedic Comic, and Outstanding Short Form Comic.

Personal life

North was born in Osgoode,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, in 1980. His parents are Anna and Randall North and said in an interview that he has a younger brother, Victor. In an interview, North said that his family lived in rural Osgoode and there was not a lot to do, so spent much of his time on the computer. After high school, he studied

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning Worl ...

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, then did his

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in computer science at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

, specializing in

computational linguistics Computational linguistics is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, comput ...

. North once hosted instructions on his website for building cardboard boxes designed to look like elements of '' Super Mario Brothers'', designed by his friend

Posterchild Posterchild is the pseudonym of a street artist based in Toronto, Canada who may be best known for his Mario Blocks project, the purpose of which is to install homemade Mario blocks in public spaces. After being featured on Boing Boing the ...

. In 2006, a group of teenage girls in

Ravenna, Ohio Ravenna is a city in Portage County, Ohio, United States. It is located east of Akron. It was formed from portions of Ravenna Township in the Connecticut Western Reserve. The population was 11,323 in the 2020 Census. It is the county seat of P ...

were arrested after they created and distributed several of these blocks, over fears they were bombs. On August 18, 2015, North became stuck in a skate pit with only an umbrella, a leash, his phone, and his dog, Noam Chompsky, after rain made the surface too slick to easily climb with a dog in tow. He posted about his conundrum on Twitter, leading hundreds of Twitter users to reply with suggestions on how to combine the items in his "inventory" to escape, eventually leading to success. North is married to his wife Jenn Klug. As of 2016, they lived in Leslieville,

, Ontario.

Bibliography

* Author, ''The Best of Dinosaur Comics: 2003-2005 AD'' (April 15, 2006, Quack!Media) * Author, ''Dinosaur Comics: Dudes Already Know About Chickens'' (2010, TopatoCo) * Editor and contributor, '' Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die'' (October 13, 2010, Machines of Death) * Author, ''Everybody Knows Failure Is Just Success Rounded Down: Dinosaur Comics'' (2011, TopatoCo) *Writer, ''

'' Issues 1-35 (2012-15, KaBOOM!) * Author, '' To Be or Not to Be: That Is the Adventure'' (2013, Breadpig) * Editor, '' This Is How You Die; Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death'' (2013, Grand Central Publishing) * Author, ''The Midas Flesh Vol. 1'' (2014, BOOM! Box) * Author, ''The Midas Flesh Vol. 2'' (2015, BOOM! Box) * Writer, '' The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl'' Vol. 1 Issues 1-8 (2015, Marvel) * Writer, '' The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl'' Vol. 2 Issues 1-50 (2015-2019, Marvel) * Author, ''Romeo and/or Juliet: A Chooseable-Path Adventure'' (2016, Riverhead Books) * Writer, '' Jughead'' Volume 2, Issues 9-11 (2017, Archie Comics) * Writer, '' Jughead'' Volume 3, Issues 12-14 (2017, Archie Comics) * Author, ''How to Be a T.Rex'' (2018, Dial Books) * Author, ''How To Invent Everything: A Survival Guide For The Stranded Time Traveler'' (2018, Riverhead Books) * Author, '' Slaughterhouse-Five: The Graphic Novel'' (2020, Archaia) * Author, ''How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain'' (2022, Riverhead Books)