Celebrate International (Interstellar?) Dinosaur Month with ‘Alien Bones’

Chris “Doc” Wyatt and Chris Grine team up for a new graphic novel from 1First Comics.

Did other planets have dinosaurs? Chris “Doc” Wyatt and Chris Grine will explore that question in October in Alien Bones, a new graphic novel coming from 1First Comics.

Coinciding with International Dinosaur Month, Alien Bones features a boy and his paleontologist father exploring the galaxy and looking for the fossils of extinct alien dinosaurs. But when his dad disappears inside the ruins of an alien city, 10-year-old Liam teams up with his pet dinosaur and a robot to save him.

“The idea of Alien Bones came from wanting to thrill my son with an adventure out in the universe,” Wyatt said. “I can admit that astronomy can sometimes seem dry and boring in the classroom, so I wanted to find a way to encourage my kid to think about the cosmos as an exciting place to explore and discover. He was interested, at the time, in dinosaurs—a lot of kids go through a dinosaur phase, and my son was no different. So, I thought: ‘What about kids having adventures with dinosaurs in space?'”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Chris Grine on ‘Time Shifters’

The creator of ‘Chickenhare’ discusses his latest all-ages graphic novel from Graphix, dealing with grief, not talking down to kids and more.

Chris Grine’s first graphic novel was Chickenhare, which was published first by Dark Horse Comics and then was reprinted in a new full-color edition by Scholastic’s Graphix imprint, along with its sequel. This year Scholastic published Time Shifters, which, like his earlier books, is written, drawn, colored and lettered by Grine.

But this one is a leap forward in terms of his art and storytelling. On one level, the book is a wild adventure story about a boy who gets caught up with a misfit band that is jumping from one universe to another. On another level, it is a story about grief and loss told in a very real and raw way. The book manages to be both very silly and wild, and a great adventure story, but never shies away from the sadness at the core. Grine and I talked about the book’s tonal shifts, grief and never playing down to kids.

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