#BookReview ‘2 Dumb Dinos’ by Nathan Hamill and Eric Filipkowski

About the book…

2 Dumb Dinos is an irreverent, but affectionate, take on the long tradition of the classic newspaper funny page strips, influenced by the likes of Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side, as well as Matt Groening’s Life is Hell.

THEY’RE DUMB. THEY’RE DINOS. THERE’S TWO OF THEM!

Welcome to the irreverently silly world of two Dinos with their hooves and claws on the pulse of all things pup-cultury. Referencing everything from BK Joes, to Chinese spy balloons, to missing Top Secret White House documents to the latest Hollywood blockbuster! This collection of the cult digital comic strips, available for the first time ever in book form, is a celebration of the glorious tradition of the American newspaper Funnies immortalized by the likes of Peanuts, The Far Side, Pearls Before Swine, and Wizard of Id, but skewed by the humor of South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and Drunk History.

It’s an affectionate and downright silly slice of American Pie with a side order of Dino guano thrown in for free!

My thanks to the wonderful Caitlin at Titan Books for my gifted review copy of ‘2 Dumb Dinos’ which is out today!

Irreverent, witty and understated , this is a collection of the first 30 plus full strips from the 200 published adventures of Dingus and Scumbag-it took me a minute to realise these were their names not terms of endearment!

The only colour that you see is on the cover, the design of the heads, and shape of teeth differentiate between the 2 dinos, otherwise, the strips are in black and white, and each is a double handler-rarely does another party enter the fray.

Here, they eat Pringles, discuss pop culture and politics in a swiftly changing time frame.

They reference past, present and future with a sideways presentation of themselves , and have a sly self awareness of their own stupidity and insubstantial nature in the world, sometimes breaking the fourth wall, and speaking directly to the reader.

The lack of colour allows Dingus and Scumbag to really pop, their lack of conventional development both echoing a traditional newspaper strip, whilst showing how irrelevant and thrown back some of their ideas are.

It’s funny, I am sure I will need to go back and re-read some of them which I didn’t quite get, but it was really fun to get to know Scumbag and Dingus , how they try to scam, one up and knock down each other, whilst still being friends . Or at least acquaintances. Colleagues, maybe?

Definitely a fun time to be spent in their world!

About the authors…

Eric Filipkowski is a writer who got his start in an early comedy troupe that also featured Bill Hader and Matt Offerman. He’s written for such hit comedy shows as South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants and Drunk History and also acts.

Nathan Hamill is artist and also the son of the legendary Mark Hamill. Nathan has worked with Matt Groening at Bongo comics and created a hugely successful range of animated and vinyl characters. And has also appeared in two Star Wars movies – The Phantom Menace and The Last Jedi.

Links-https://www.nathanhamill.com/

Twitter @NathanHamill @2dumbdinos @ericfilipkowski  @ComicsTitan