(+++) DINO MIGHTS

Dinosaur Friendship. By James Stewart. Illustrated by K. Roméy. HarperCollins. $14.99.

     Comics about animals are almost never about animals, so potential readers will likely guess when they see the title Dinosaur Friendship that this small hardcover gift-book-size volume is not about dinosaurs. And maybe not about friendship. And maybe not even a gift book. Those would be pretty good guesses – but not entirely accurate ones. Yes, the dinosaurs appearing on all these pages are stand-ins for human beings: there is something about dinosaurs that seems peculiarly appropriate in a world that many people fear is rushing headlong toward doom, or at least whose human inhabitants are hurrying in that general direction. As for “friendship,” that depends on how it is defined: the book tries to have it several ways, with sections called “Friends: The Family You Choose,” “Family: The Friends You Don’t Choose,” “Love: Really, Really Good Friends,” “Yourself: The Friend It’s Easy to Forget,” and “Professional: Friends You’re Paid to Hang Out With.” (That last one should, however, probably be “Professionals,” plural, defined as “friends you pay to hang out with.” Oops.)

     As for being a gift volume, that is a touch more complicated. The heart of the book – which is full of heart, and often heartfelt – lies in the penultimate section, with almost all the dinosaur interactions throughout the strips ultimately being about the importance of coming to terms, positive terms, with yourself. Getting there through interactions with friends/family/professionals, or some combination of those, is fine, but ultimately it is crucial to accept and be on good terms with you, no matter what it takes to get there.

     This makes the book sound rather heavy-handed, even sermon-like, and yes, it has those characteristics to some degree; but by and large, James Stewart and K. Roméy take the weighty topics of unhappiness, uncertainty, depressive feelings, loneliness and generalized angst and lighten them just enough – courtesy of having dinosaurs rather than humans dealing with them – so the book comes across as more positive than preachy. Thus, Dinosaur Friendship can indeed be a great gift for that special someone who is trying to cope with some of the feelings explored here. One four-panel entry, for instance, has a dino commenting that another is crabby, and the other explains that is because “I got up early” and so “I’m tired.” Then, the next day, there is the same comment about being crabby, with the response that “I got up late” and so “I wasted the day.” Crabbiness, in other words, will always find a way.

     Dinosaurs worry about all sorts of things in these pages. After a social interaction: “Did I successfully come across as normal?” After being reassured that everything will be okay: “I don’t believe you. But it helps anyway.” When making breakfast at 4:00 in the afternoon: “Breakfast is a state of mind.” When told to be more confident and stop saying everything might go wrong: “Okay. Everything will go wrong.” And when feeling down “because I never do anything,” replying, upon being asked why you never do anything, “Because I feel so down.”

     A lot of this material lies on the border between self-help and pop psychology, and virtually all of it is achingly simplistic. But the leavening of humor with which the material is presented makes a great number of the potentially upsetting feelings and circumstances easier to bear. For instance, when told that “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” one dinosaur figures out that “that means it doesn’t matter how bad I am as long as there’s someone worse.” Elsewhere, in a wedding-vows scene, one character realizes that “I think I misunderstood the assignment” – and when reassured that it is fine just to “read what you have,” proceeds to declaim, “A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y.” In this world, the occasional bursts of sincerity stand out for their directness, as when one temporarily separated dino couple’s texts back and forth include the comment that “distance makes the heart grow fonder, but my heart is so fond it hurts.”

     Anyone unwilling to see dinosaurs sending text messages would be the wrong recipient of Dinosaur Friendship. That also applies to anyone objecting to dinosaurs wearing bow ties sometimes, and sometimes backpacks; sleeping in beds; and ruminating about being able to “do whatever I want” because “girlfriend’s away for the weekend” – then realizing, “I want to hang out with my girlfriend.” The humor here is sometimes wry, sometimes gentle, sometimes a touch twisted (maybe even two touches). But the dinosaur-driven exploration of distinctly human feelings is what makes Dinosaur Friendship the sort of gift you can give to just the right person, even if (especially if) the “right person” is yourself.