Dawn of Time



Dawn of Time is a webcomic by Michael Stearns. 100 million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, there was a young cavewoman named Dawn. Armed only with her determination and only a little common sense, Dawn sets out to make her way in the savage wild. Along the way, she meets and befriends a big, friendly triceratops named Blue, as well as a time traveler named Mantell. Things kind of snowball from there.

In July 2011 Stearns announced that he was putting the comic on indefinite hiatus due to other commitments.


 * Action Girl: Dawn
 * All Animals Are Dogs: Blue
 * All of the Other Reindeer: In Blue's backstory it's shown that he hatched among a clutch of Protoceratops. Lampshaded by the title of the chapter: "The Ugly Protoceratops".
 * Anachronism Stew
 * Baleful Polymorph:
 * Bare Your Midriff: Dawn
 * Big Damn Heroes
 * Dawn and Blue.
 * Blue does this in his backstory and.
 * Blood Lust: Dawn acquires a taste for blood after being covered with it.
 * Butt Monkey: The lungfish.
 * Chekhov's Gun
 * The "Chaos Elephant". As it was named when returned later.
 * Chekhov's Gunman
 * Mary Ann Woodhouse.
 * Chekhov MIA: Too bad we never really get to see what that was all about due to the Series Hiatus.
 * Chess with Death: Not only chess, but also a test of guitar-playing skill. Settlers of Catan is also an option.
 * Cloudcuckoolander
 * Dawn
 * Blue's expressions sometimes imply that he is this as well.
 * Cool Bike: BLU 1 in the "Dawn in Time" arc, starting here.
 * Disney Death:
 * Does Not Like Shoes: What self-respecting cavewoman does?
 * Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Sets off the Indy Escape.
 * The Drifter: Dawn
 * Dumb Blonde: Dawn
 * Everything's Better with Dinosaurs
 * Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods: A giant ammonite attacks the ship Dawn, Mantell, and Blue are on.
 * Face Palm: Dawn can make facepalm.
 * Feathered Fiend
 * The dromaeosaurids are initially (intentionally) shown unfeathered. A feathered dinosaur shows up later in the comic, and the Velociraptor in Blue's backstory is also feathered.
 * Averted by the dinosauroids, who worship Dawn and aid the heroes.
 * Fish Out of Temporal Water: Mantell
 * Foot Focus
 * As pointed out in the blurb, bare feet are hard to draw and the author was getting over his fear of drawing them with this strip.
 * This one too.
 * For Want of a Nail: In the guest comic Mantell gives Dawn his hat and leaves. It was a really swell hat...
 * Fur Bikini: Dawn
 * Genre Savvy: Mantell. He also Lampshades the fact that the oldest tricks are still fresh.
 * Giant Flyer: The azhdarchid pterosaurs in Chapter V.
 * A Girl and Her Triceratops
 * The Grim Reaper: There are actually (at least) two of them, one for humans and one for other creatures. Dawn and Blue escape them, and so are apparently still alive.
 * Growling Gut: Dawn and Mantell, regularly. Blue too, in his flashback.
 * Historical Domain Character
 * Gideon Mantell and Richard Owen, whose rivalry is kept intact.
 * And Gideon's eventual (from his perspective) wife Mary Ann Woodhouse.
 * H. G. Wells shows up as the inventor of several time machines.
 * Historical Villain Upgrade: Owen
 * Kleptomaniac Hero: Dawn, who steals a mirror, a brush, etc. And repeatedly Mantell's hat!
 * Indy Escape: Seen here.
 * Left Hanging: Certain tantalizing plot threads, due to the Series Hiatus. This being a prime example.
 * Lethal Chef: It should be said lungfish taste terrible.
 * Little Miss Badass: Dawn
 * Mind Screw: The entire time traveling storyline, including.
 * Nice Hat: Mantell's hat, which Dawn loves to steal. This guy uses those exact words.
 * Nobody Here but Us Statues: Blue, hiding from pursuit in a Victorian dinosaur park. Ironically, Blue is the only "statue" that looks remotely accurate according to current knowledge of dinosaurs.
 * Non-Human Sidekick: Blue
 * Nubile Savage: Dawn
 * Oh Crap
 * Dawn when she realizes a pterosaur is behind her.
 * Also when, after adventuring in the future, she and Blue arrive back in their own time JUST as the Chixhulub meteorite is about to impact.
 * One Million BC: About 100 in fact.
 * Ptero-Soarer: Averted by the azhdarchid pterosaurs!
 * Rain of Blood: See Blood Lust.
 * Raptor Attack: The featherless dromaeosaurids in earlier pages play this straight, but the dromaeosaurids that appear later are more true to real life.
 * Rebus Bubble: This strip, or this one.
 * Running Gag
 * The lungfish are screwed whenever they think about getting out of the water.
 * Dawn vomiting after trying to eat something inedible.
 * Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Quoth the guy who found himself between two instances of very unamused Blue - "You definitely didn't say anything about two of these things".
 * Seashell Bra: Averted! The author couldn't bring himself to draw any because there would be no reason for them.
 * Series Hiatus: Since July 2011.
 * Shout-Out: Here's one to The Little Mermaid, and another to the Mad Max trilogy.
 * Smoking Is Cool: Mantell smokes a pipe at first.
 * Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying: This is on purpose so "dinosaurs read as clearly as possible." Averted here. Also averted with ground-hunting azhdarchid pterosaurs and a more bird-like view of the hypothetical "dinosauroids".
 * Steal the Surroundings: It's easier to abduct Dawn than to take a hat from her when she's in a possessive mood.
 * Stock Dinosaurs: Played straight and averted. Fan-favorites like Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops make appearances, but so do less well known species like Pachyrhinosaurus and Sauropelta.
 * Storming the Castle: The dinosauroids enlist the help of pterosaurs and use Blue as a wrecking ball to do this in order to save Dawn.
 * Symbol Swearing: Not that whatever Dawn's saying is ever intelligible, but when she swears, we know it.
 * Take That: To Dr. Horner's hypothesis that Tyrannosaurus Rex was an obligate scavenger.
 * Temple of Doom:
 * Thirty Minutes or It's Free: Parodied in "Dawn in Time".
 * Time Paradox:
 * Too Dumb to Live
 * Dawn herself at the start of the comic. (Which is a little odd, as her adoptive parents later mention that it wasn't uncommon for her to leave home for a few days. How did she feed herself during those times? Or did she just go hungry?)
 * Tyrannosaurus Rex
 * The Unintelligible: Dawn
 * Under the Truck: During the bike chase scene in "Dawn in Time".
 * Underwater Kiss: Of the Type B variation.
 * Wanted Poster: Dawn for "attempted 'cattle' rustling and destruction of property."
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: The dinosauroids just kind of vanish after "The Island Queen" story arc.
 * You Can't Fight Fate: Averted. Dawn successfully changes the past and saves herself. Not only that, but the circumstances in the past she returns to ends up slightly different from the one she left.
 * Underwater Kiss: Of the Type B variation.
 * Wanted Poster: Dawn for "attempted 'cattle' rustling and destruction of property."
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: The dinosauroids just kind of vanish after "The Island Queen" story arc.
 * You Can't Fight Fate: Averted. Dawn successfully changes the past and saves herself. Not only that, but the circumstances in the past she returns to ends up slightly different from the one she left.