Dawn of Time

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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. It was still on hiatus as of June 2020.

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Tropes used in Dawn of Time include:

• 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: A merman who saves Dawn from drowning appears to be attempting to turn her into a mermaid to join his little undersea harem, but she rejects it. A giant nautiloid attacks their ship immediately after.
• Bare Your Midriff: Dawn
• Big Damn Heroes
  • Dawn and Blue return from the future to rescue Dawn from the past.
  • The elephant god saves Dawn from the castle guards. The dinosauroids also do this at around the same time by Storming the Castle.
  • Blue does this in his backstory and finally gains the friendship of his Protoceratops "sibling" by saving him from a Velociraptor.
• 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.
  • Even Dawn's spiral hairdo, in fact.
• Chekhov's Gunman
  • The elephant god.
  • Mary Ann Woodhouse.
• Chekhov MIA: The old man Dawn befriended as a child. 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: Blue's Protoceratops "sibling". It looks as though he has died and has become part of the "fighting dinosaurs" fossil, but it turns out he was just dreaming and Blue had already saved him.
• 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 even Death 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 when Owen takes the time machine and leaves him behind.
• 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 Owen's plan to retcon his aging and Dawn getting sent into the future and then returning to save herself.
• 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. Also, Dawn is the only primitive. Everyone else seems to be relatively further along.
• 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 (or smoking a pipe).
• 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. After the dinosauroid chief is killed, Dawn leads the surviving dinosauroids on a second charge.
• 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. Dr. Horner and Dr. Bakker go into the past to investigate, and, predictably, Dr. Horner gets eaten when he tries to show that T. rex would not be interested in live prey.
• Temple of Doom: Complete with a half-elephant/half-man god thing guarding the inside.
• Thirty Minutes or It's Free: Parodied in "Dawn in Time".
• Time Paradox: Mantell goes to get his hat to avoid one, but then Owen leaves him behind.
• 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?)
  • Dr. Horner. Yes, no doubt the T. rex was just a cowardly scavenger....
• 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.