The Dinoswords

Dinoswords was a concept that Tim had come up with in the early-mid eighties. When he was approached to come on board a new comic called Triffik that was being billed as a new Beano and Dandy for the nineties he returned once more to his creations and dusted them off.

Tim spoke to his good friend in the comics business, writer, James Hill and asked him to come on board as the writer, although Tim would still co-plot, something, which James kindly agreed to do.

Triffik underwent a long process of starting up:

First came issue #1 released in 1989:

This is definitely a collector's item, if you have one.

Tim produced artwork for this incarnation on:

• 'The Monster Munch Monsters' (full colour 2-page advertising humour strip).

Second came issue #1 released with a cover date of 27 February 1992,  also coming out prior to the main launch.

This is again definitely a collector's item if you have one.

By the time of Triffik's second outing Tim's page output had increased incredibly.

Tim produced artwork for this second incarnation on:

• 'The Dinoswords' (full colour art and storyline 2-page adventure-humour strip).
• 'Harry Hacker' (full colour 2-page humour strip), later to be revamped as Hannah Hacker.
• 'Buster Case', this too was to be revamped when the strip became a more cartoon like version. (black & white 2-page adventure/humour strip). This strip had a reader involvement with readers asked to solve that week's crime and send in the answer to the comic to claim a prize.
• 'The Street Squad' originally billed as the 'The Skate Squad', (full colour 3-page adventure strip), at the launch this 'realistic' strip was axed from the final version of the comic when all the content became cartoon based.

Third came issue #1 cover date 29 February 1992, and carrying 'Sample Copy' and 'Collector's Issue' on the cover masthead logo.

The content of this is identical to the fourth version of issue #1 below.

Fourth and final issue #1 cover date 29 February 1992.

Tim produced artwork for this second incarnation on:

• 'The Dinoswords' (full colour art and storyline 2-page adventure-humour strip).
• 'Hannah Hacker' (full colour 2-page humour strip).
• 'Buster Case', (1 page black & white 1 colour page 2-page adventure/humour strip). This strip again had a reader involvement with readers asked to solve that week's crime and send in the answer to the comic to claim a prize.

The Launch:

On the day of the launch a big push was made and The Dinoswords opened up the launch on Radio 5's morning show hosted by DJ Johnny Walker. It was obvious that The Dinoswords were seen as the main stars of the show by all involved.

Tim also designed another character:

• T.J. Nutter and his lethal weapons (an obvious T.J. Hooker pastiche) with the tagline – "He's on loan from the New York Traffic patrol…Forever!" And a second tagline – "Cop that!"

A 'similar' character appeared under the guise of Ralf Recoil in the first issue, but due to commitments with the other characters Tim had to pass on the art chores.

The deadline of three weeks to produce 12 episodes of each of the three strips, meant that Tim had to pencil, ink and colour Dinoswords and his other two strips, Hannah Hacker and Buster case on the fly. To do this successfully he employed the services of his brother Chris to produce the lettering on overlay, along with another artist called Bonk, whilst the other colours were applied to any of the pages Tim was unable to colour himself, by Leo Brown and Simon Clegg.

The deadline was more than met and in fact the 12 episodes of each strip were completed and arrived at the publishers in 16 days. By the end of the three weeks period Tim had pencilled and inked 18 episodes of all three strips and coloured a large chunk of the pages as well.

The Dinoswords started off life in the middle pages as a double page full colour spread, but by issue #11 became a three-page story taking over the front cover and pages 2 and 3.

Tim created many weird and wonderful bad guys for the heroes to meet:

• 'Mucus Membrain' (their arch villain) and his assistants, 'Ninny' and 'Numbskull'.
• J. P. Crass – The burger magnate.

The stories were fast paced and fun and always left the reader with a cliffhanger ending, something Tim thinks was a good thing. They were adventure-humour storylines.

The comic lasted 12 issues but Tim actually drew 18 episodes of Dinoswords the latter ones including another of his villains, 'Professor Victor Von Stopwatch'.

Other characters were created for the series and the original sketches and character descriptions are currently in Tim's files.

Villains for the series included:

• 'Professor Victor Von Stopwatch', the Master of Time Travel.

During this unpublished run of Dinoswords the Professor created a time portal and out of it came his highly trained and also mutated dinosaur hench men. Their names were:

• 'Kurt' (Rustle) the Allosaurus.
• 'Claude' (Van Stamp) the Ceratosaurus.
• 'Dolph' (Lunch-Grubb) the Pteranodon.
• 'Rutger' (Heavy) the Diplodocus.

More Villains included:

• 'Buster Crabbe', who also went under the names, The Cosmic Crustacean and The Atomic Arthropod.
• 'Kromlyn Orkk', an intergalactic cosmic Orc.
• 'Professor Mechs and his Mechs-Men'. He runs a school for talented robots.

The Mechs-Men included:

• 'Bi-Clops', telescopic vision and the leader of the Mechs-Men.
• 'Mad.Maxx', the p'sensor of the group, whose head can spin completely 360° around.
• 'Mecha Nique', a master artificer.
• 'Tripod', able to run incredibly fast, due to extra leg.
• 'Xerox', a mutant mimic.

Other Villains included:

• 'Arthur Ologist'.
• 'Dimetro-Don', a super powered mutant dinosaur, who can convert the sun's rays into energy, like solar panels with the fin on his back.

The Cancellation:

The untimely cancellation of Triffik meant Tim's creations were again allowed to sit there gathering dust…although this doesn't mean they won't rise again like a Phoenix from the ashes, someday.

Unfortunately none of the original full colour artwork for any of the comic strips mentioned above, including episode two of Dinoswords' double page spread were returned. However, due to the way Tim was producing the artwork, fortunately all of the blackline work still survives.

Below are two colour pages scanned from the comic and two pages of blackline work scanned from the original artwork:

The blackline pages are unpublished pages from issue #17:

The Dinoswords Episode 1 Pages 1 and 2 art by Tim Perkins

   Dinoswords Episode 17 Page 1 art by Tim Perkins       Dinoswords Episode 17 Page 2 art by Tim Perkins

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