Ryan North

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Ryan North

Born 1980-10-20
Ottawa, Ontario
Occupation Comic writer, computer programmer
Nationality Canada
Writing period 2000 – present
Genres Humor
Literary movement Webcomic
Notable work(s) Dinosaur Comics
Official website

Ryan M. North (born October 20, 1980) is a Canadian writer and computer programmer who is the creator and author of Dinosaur Comics, and co-creator of Whispered Apologies and Happy Dog the Happy Dog.

North grew up in Ottawa, Ontario where he studied computer science (minor in film) at Carleton University before moving to Toronto for his Master's degree in Computer Science at the University of Toronto, specializing in computational linguistics; he graduated in 2005. He is a humorist, programmer and longboarding enthusiast; but also designs t-shirts as a day job. His parents are Anna and Randall North. He has a younger brother, Victor North.

A fixed-art webcomic, Dinosaur Comics has run for more than 1000 issues and has been published by Quack!Media as The Best of Dinosaur Comics: 2003-2005 AD: Your Whole Family Is Made Of Meat[1]. North is a founding member of the webcomic group The Ryans[citation needed] and also a member of Dayfree Press. Before Dinosaur Comics, North created Robot Erotica[2]. In addition to his comics, North has created three tools to aid webcomic authors: Oh No Robot, a webcomic transcription tool which creates searchable text databases for comics; RSSpect, a method of creating RSS feeds for websites; and Project Wonderful, a pay-per-day auction-based ad serving system. The first two are free, while the latter takes 25% of each sale.

The name Ryan North is held by many other individuals, and Ryan North the webcomic author sarcastically tried to stop these other people using his name in a series of satirical emails[3]. North once got himself in trouble with authorities by sending crank emails[4]. He was also connected to the arrest of a group of 15-year-old girls in Ravenna, Ohio when they created and distributed a number of cardboard boxes, inspired by a website he hosts for Poster Child.[5]

On November 8, 2006, Ryan North launched the site Every Topic in the Universe Except Chickens [6], which jokingly attempted to decrease vandalism on Wikipedia by encouraging vandals only to vandalize the article on chickens: "...instead of vandalizing Wikipedia in general, we all just vandalize the chicken article." North satirically 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." His joke site has been covered by the mass media.[7]

Ryan North owns several other domain names, all redirecting to www.qwantz.com, and chosen for comic effect; some of these are domain hacks. These include:


[edit] Bibliography

  • The Best of Dinosaur Comics: 2003-2005 AD (April 15, 2006, Quack!Media) ISBN 0-7560-0518-3

[edit] References

  1. ^ qwantz.com - dinosaur comics - books!. Retrieved on 2007-01-19.
  2. ^ Madhouse: Robot Erotica. Retrieved on 2007-01-19.
  3. ^ Madhouse: Ryan vs Ryan. Retrieved on 2007-01-19.
  4. ^ Madhouse: Madhouse Takes On City Hall. Retrieved on 2007-01-19.
  5. ^ Tall Poppy interview with Ryan North. Retrieved on 2007-01-19.
  6. ^ EveryTopicInTheUniverseExceptChickens DOT COM: Save Wikipedia! Promote accuracy at the expense of chickens.. Retrieved on 2007-01-19.
  7. ^ Tossell, Ivor. "An earnest target of digital vandals", Globe and Mail, 2006-11-17. 

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Persondata
NAME North, Ryan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION Canadian webcomic writer and programmer
DATE OF BIRTH October 20, 1980
PLACE OF BIRTH Ottawa, Ontario. Canada
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Languages