Dave Coates Dot Corn

Where the Archives End: Gor

It's a rough slog down here in the sub-archives. Lured by the promise of a free GoComics Pro account, men and women come from all around to work shifts mining the rich Ziggy deposits that run deep into the earth. Phones mounted on helmets (the GoComics mobile app was tuned to be among the brightest displays possible on mobile devices), their screens illuminate the veins of Boondocks shale that run from ceiling to floor, glittering, pristine and self-righteous.

The air is thick with the smell of erased graphite and Hawaiian shirts, and too much time down here can take a toll: earlier today, when I pulled my handkerchief away from my mouth after a coughing fit, it had flecks of Geech on it.

Seems like only yesterday that Geech Lung Disease claimed my dear Paw-Paw, who fought valiantly to the last, insisting he be allowed to continue drilling for pre-1995 Doonesburys instead of continuing his medical treatment, breathing vaporized copies of Tom the Dancing Bug thrice daily. They say he couldn't rest until he found out how Trudeau wrapped up his arc on the fallout from the GOP's proposed "Contract with America" in 1994. Once he did (spoiler: it was Grover Norquist disguised as Jiminy Cricket the whole time!), they say Paw-Paw quietly hurled himself into an open pit and fell screaming peacefully to his gentle, violent death.

Near his crumpled skeleton rests the bones of Gor, a spanish-language strip by Tomas Oleas that ran for over a decade in papers throughout the world. It is about a young triceratops named Gor, who helps his family and dino-pals stay one step ahead of a very hungry, very singleminded tyrannosaurus rex and a museum wing's-worth of other terrible thunderlizards. It's stressful!

Stressful, but also admirably dedicated to its premise: while I do not speak very much Spanish, as nearly as I can tell, Gor is only ever about this central conflict. Basically, it's the film "The Warriors," where every gang has their own distinct look and colors, except the cast is all dinosaurs. Hold on to your butts!

Gor sticks to its Cretaceous period setting, without fudging the timeline to allow for stuff like meddling cavemen or crazy-huge dragonflies, and unlike in "The Warriors," no one gets to rumble while wearing a sweet vest. In Gor's defense, "The Warriors" didn't have a single dinosaur in it. Otherwise? The film and comic are identical.

Except there's this thing:

He doesn't stick around too long. There's so much fighting and/ or chasing to be done! To Oleas' credit, he gives his characters a lot of movement and varies their poses as much as he can, and despite the limited expressions available to dinosaur faces, you can usually tell just by a character's eyes how he's feeling.

The sound effects employed are also a real treat. I'm always fascinated by other cultures' takes on animal sounds and onomatopoeias, and Gor does not disappoint!

Unfortunately, our drill hit a diamond-hard seam of Tank McNamara's take on Marge Schott, and we can descend no further, so Gor's post-2012 Sunday adventures will have to continue their slumber, nestled within the earth. My best guess? They unite against the real enemy: volcanoes! Then later, mammals begin to walk upright, and evolve into Dilbert.

The structural integrity of the ceiling down in the sub-archives is somewhat poor, so further investigation is a job for our all-volunteer, all-child "rat squad," who are practiced at squirming through the gaps left within a pile of crumbling rocks to retrieve things like lost watches and stray clip art of Snoopy on a camping trip. Most of them remain un-crushed to this day!

Thanks for joining me down here. Let's never do it again.