Parry and Carney
Parry and Carney is a paleontology-themed webcomic by Mike Keesey. It stars the Carnotaurus Carney. Parry the Parasaurolophus on the other hand, in spite of having his name in the title, had his head promptly bitten off by Carney after introducing himself in the first strip and hasn't been seen since. The comic discusses a variety of topics, discoveries, and events in paleontology via the many different dinosaurs and other animals Carney encounters, which ultimately almost always suffer the same fate as Parry.
Sadly, as demonstrated in what is currently the last comic, Parry and Carney hasn't been updated since 2007.
Tropes used in Parry and Carney include:
- Anachronism Stew: Lampshaded here.
- Author Avatar: First shown here.
- Back From the Dead: The Author Avatar does this every so often, but subverted by Parry here.
- Big Eater: Aside from the sheer number of heads he has devoured, Carney demonstrated early on that he can decapitate just about anything in one bite regardless of size.
- Bloody Hilarious
- Carnivore Confusion: Easily solved: Carney eats (almost) everything else.
- Castorocauda Kiss: Shown here.
- Comically Missing the Point: While researching how to make babies, Carney and Carnita find an artistic depiction of two mating Carnotaurus with a background filled with flying pterosaurs. Their reaction is, "Where would we get the pterosaurs?"
- Deadpan Snarker: The turtle.
- Decoy Protagonist: Parry.
- Eats Babies: Carney and Carnita certainly have no qualms about doing this.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Carney seriously considers not eating Santa, especially after "Santa" is revealed to be Charles Darwin, and is even inspired to make his New Year's resolution not to bite anymore heads off. But after running out of alternative characters to eat, he eats Darwin anyway (and continues with the decapitation).
- Feathered Fiend: A Buitreraptor exposes "Santa" as Charles Darwin and tries to convince Carney to eat him. Predictably, it's the dromaeosaurid's head that gets bitten off (first).
- Historical Domain Character: Charles Darwin.
- Killed Off for Real: The majority of decapitated characters, though not the Author Avatar.
- Left Hanging: The "noble Carnotaurus" that shows up here has not yet been decapitated (or otherwise Put on a Bus). Tellingly, it is followed up by what is currently the last strip, which discusses the artist being too busy to update the comic.
- Love Interest: Carnita.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Lampshaded here.
- Mugging the Monster: Several creatures have made fun of or bullied Carney throughout the comic. It almost never ends well for them. Only a turtle has pulled it off so far.
- Nigh Invulnerability: The robot XL-TR71 claims to be this. It doesn't work out.
- Off with His Head: Befalls almost every single character Carney meets, with a few exceptions.
- Ptero-Soarer: Oddly, the pterosaurs are bipedal, though otherwise accurate.
- Put on a Bus: The few characters that aren't killed off generally get this treatment eventually. Carnita dumps Carney and leaves him, while the turtle is sneezed away off panel.
- Raptor Attack: Averted! Especially notable considering that some of the deinonychosaurs in this comic appeared way back in 2005.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: The comic frequently discusses (then-)current paleontological discoveries and events (such as annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meetings).
- Rock Bottom: Carney wonders "What else can go wrong?" here, with the turtle stuck in his mouth offering some suggestions. He ends up losing his teeth.
- Rule of Funny: Frequently regarding the ability of Carney (and Carnita) to decapitate other creatures, regardless of the target's attributes. Carney has been shown to be able to to decapitate much larger predators, a supposedly-invincible robot, and even illustrated dinosaurs in a book as well as a younger Carnotaurus in a flashback.
- Running Gag: Off with His Head. The extremely short arms of Carnotaurus (shorter and more degenerate than those of Tyrannosaurus Rex) are a frequent source of humor as well.
- Science Marches On: A Pterodaustro is shown trying to take off bipedally like a bird, but it is now thought that pterosaurs launched themselves using their forelimbs.
- Seldom-Seen Species: Many, especially due to relatively new discoveries being commonly featured. Examples include Sinornithoides, Buitreraptor, Irritator, Puertasaurus, Hagryphus, Effigia, Castorocauda, Mapusaurus, Tiktaalik, and Pterodaustro.
- Series Hiatus
- Shout-Out: To Hamlet, King Kong, Lady and the Tramp, and Luis Rey's painting of a Carnotaurus pair mating, probably among others.
- Shown Their Work: Not surprising, considering that the artist, though not a professional paleontologist, studied under Dr. Thomas Holtz and constantly maintains an active interest in paleontology and phylogenetics. Aside from the scientifically accurate characters and paleontological in jokes within the comic itself, the blog posts that accompany certain strips also demonstrate this heavily.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Tiktaalik, in the comic that celebrates its publication.
- Stock Dinosaurs: Carney himself is a borderline example. Also Parry, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops and Giganotosaurus.
- Take That: To creationism, intelligent design, and King Kong.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The pair of Carnotaurus here.
- Too Dumb to Live: Many of the Mugging the Monster examples, and the Pterodaustro that got itself stuck in a tar pit.
- Turtle Power: A turtle is so far the only character to actually survive an attempted head biting (courtesy of being able to retract its head into its shell).
- Tyrannosaurus Rex: Naturally, and an entire family of them at that. Yes, they get their heads eaten too.
- Unusual Euphemism: "Coprolites-for-brains".
- Your Favorite: Santa (actually Charles Darwin in disguise) gives Carney a giant gorilla as a Christmas present, to which Carney replies, "My favorite! How did you know?"