Doc Dino is a comedy graphic novel being put together by comic book writer Chris Welsh. We caught up with him to find out more.

STARBRST: What is Doc Dino?

Chris Welsh: Doc Dino, the comic, is a 68-page full colour graphic novel we’ve put on Kickstarter. It’s written by me and Tom Ward (Merrick), with art by Mac Radwanski, colours by Dee Cunniffe (Wicked + Divine, ODY-C) and letters by Micah Myers. It’s 20% funded with a lot of time left, so plenty of time to jump aboard. Doc Dino, the protagonist, is Dr. Tyrannosaurus Rexley – a teacup T-Rex with a big heart (but little arms). He’s the best damn surgeon in the world. On paper. In real life? Not so much.

My goodness, why?
Well, why not? Everyone told us not to do it so we did. We firmly believe this is a great story and we’re proud of the work we’ve already put into it. Now we just need several hundred others to believe in it too and we should be set.

Why a T-Rex?
The story is all about moving forward and not letting your past dictate who you are. Not being a dinosaur, essentially. But Doc Dino is a dinosaur, so obviously he’s having some problems. Also because T-Rexes are rad.

Why a medical drama?
Because Doc Dino is a doctor. It’d be silly to have him in a sports comic. If it helps explain our motives, Doc Dino 2 is a The Fugitive-style on-the-run story, Doc Dino 3 is set in space, and Doc Dino 7 features our titular hero in a mission to Moscow.

What should we expect from the project?
Big laughs, wet tears, life lessons. The comic is an emotional rollercoaster, and you’ve got to ride it. There’s also some fight scenes, hired mercenaries, and a huge evil robot dinosaur. Standard stuff.

Why are so many indie comics using Kickstarter?
We can’t speak for the community as a whole, but for us it offers the chance to bring projects to life and interact directly with a huge potential fanbase. Plus it’s been good to us in the past – between me and Tom, we’ve had four successful Kickstarter campaigns. Two each, for our other comic series’ Wart and Merrick. It’s a great website and a fantastic way of getting momentum behind a project – it’s also a great way of finding out if your project is good or not. If it isn’t, it probably won’t get funded.

Where did the inspiration for Doc Dino come from?
Doc Dino was born during one of our Pitch Parties, where we get together to throw ideas for new stories at each other to see what sticks. I don’t remember who brought up the esteemed gentleman dinosaur first, but whoever did, they made history. We beat out the story first, took turns to write the opening chunks, then mashed them together. Pretty much all of the second half was written in a pub in Amsterdam after Dutch Comic Con.

What’s your next big project?

Well there’s a semi-secret graphic novel in the works with artist Rob Carey, all about Scottish mythology and huge monsters. I’m also working with Wart artist Ammar Al-Chalabi on about seventeen different projects. For Tom, he’s just released the first trade paperback for Merrick, which collects the first story arc, and is now focussing on the recently Kickstarted Merrick spin-off TREVES. And then more Merrick after that. For both of us, if Doc Dino is a success we’ll be working on Doc Dino 2 (and all subsequent sequels…) and the second issue of The Grime, the nasty little open submission horror anthology that we’re both editors on, along with series creator James McCulloch.

You can find out more about Doc Dino on Kickstarter.