Sailboats have a long keel that goes under the water to give them stability in the water. Artist saw this and decided the lizard could use that to float along comfortably and stably. Details here: https://bettersailing.com/sailboat-keel-types/
I first read your title in French.
If the fin is meant for cooling, water is more efficient than air, plus, floating is less tiring than crawling.
I, too, read it as ‘The End”, which got me worried . . .
.. and then the small fish underwater sees it, and … ?
I think the fish is about to bite the fin? and then the dino won’t be relaxing anymore?
“.. and then the small fish underwater sees it, and … ?”
And nothing… the small fish is just sympathetic background (the puzzled look is to encourage to audience to recognize the image of a finned dino on his back as odd)
I think the fish is just startled.
“The sky looks amazing”
He’s never been able to rest on his back and look at the sky before. Last panel shows why.
According to the Doubleclicks they ate sharks, so maybe they spent a lot of time in water? Maybe the Doubleclicks are not a good science reference…
Try again to get the Dimetrodon one:
Maybe like the iceberg thing, where most of it is unseen under the water?
I don’t see a joke in any of these interpretations, though.
I think it’s an evolution joke. First the view of sky above the sea is nice, then next comes the tentative crawl onto land. The fin is just to show that it’s (for the moment) a sea creature.
Brian, both of them seem to work.
Charming indeed!
Is there really just one cellist? Does she sneak across the street off camera?
Pete has it. The fish is there so you know his fin is under the surface of the water.
Thanks to Brian R, I’ve learned the dimetrodon sports a “neural spine sail”.
And if it is a dimetrodon, it’s closer to mammals than to lizards. (Wikipedia. Wikipedia also says they ate sharks and “became extinct some 40 million years before the first appearance of dinosaurs.” (I do enjoy the more inclusive and diverse B.C. universe.)
(wondering if anyone can write “dimetrodon” now, without hearing the song?)
Wow, guys. You all didn’t get this? (Except Pete?)
He’s a dimetrodon. The only way a dimetrodon can lie on his back is do to it in the water. That’s the big reveal in Panel 3 — the reason he’s never seen the sky before.
I thought it was a great visual gag.
We used to take the toddler to the HMNH about every month.The Dimetrodon skeleton is in a nice low cabinet. Dnd yes, the song is quite accurate about Dimetrodons. https://whatsinaname.hmnh.harvard.edu/dimetrodon
I’m always down for a dimetrodon in a comic strip. It is a cool-looking creature.
They are not dinosaurs, as already has been pointed out, but are often mistaken for dinosaurs and were (still are?) common sights in sets of plastic toy dinosaurs so a lot of kids have grown up seeing them represented as dinosaurs. I used to doodle a series of comics where other prehistoric creatures would call dimetrodons “dinosaurs” due to some comically anachronistic/human behavior. The dimetrodon(s) would angrily respond “I’m NOT a dinosaur!” as a running gag. Well, I thought it was funny…
I agree with Powers (and Pete), with the minor addition that before I noticed the tail in the first panel, I thought it was supposed to be “John” (the Turtle), and not just a random appearance by an unrelated character. It would have made the “reveal” even more of a surprise if the tail had been shown dragging a little below the surface.
I got it right away. The dimetrodon cannot look up. They also lived during the Cisuralian (Early Permian), around 295–272 million years ago. By the time of the late Cretaceous period, about 68 million years ago when the “big one” hit they were gone off the planet in for @200,000,000 years.
Time keeps on slipping slipping into the future!!
Comics I Don't Understand 
Sailboats have a long keel that goes under the water to give them stability in the water. Artist saw this and decided the lizard could use that to float along comfortably and stably. Details here:
https://bettersailing.com/sailboat-keel-types/
I first read your title in French.
If the fin is meant for cooling, water is more efficient than air, plus, floating is less tiring than crawling.
I, too, read it as ‘The End”, which got me worried . . .
.. and then the small fish underwater sees it, and … ?
I think the fish is about to bite the fin? and then the dino won’t be relaxing anymore?
“.. and then the small fish underwater sees it, and … ?”
And nothing… the small fish is just sympathetic background (the puzzled look is to encourage to audience to recognize the image of a finned dino on his back as odd)
I think the fish is just startled.
“The sky looks amazing”
He’s never been able to rest on his back and look at the sky before. Last panel shows why.
According to the Doubleclicks they ate sharks, so maybe they spent a lot of time in water? Maybe the Doubleclicks are not a good science reference…
Try again to get the Dimetrodon one:
Maybe like the iceberg thing, where most of it is unseen under the water?
I don’t see a joke in any of these interpretations, though.
I think it’s an evolution joke. First the view of sky above the sea is nice, then next comes the tentative crawl onto land. The fin is just to show that it’s (for the moment) a sea creature.
Brian, both of them seem to work.
Charming indeed!
Is there really just one cellist? Does she sneak across the street off camera?
Pete has it. The fish is there so you know his fin is under the surface of the water.
Thanks to Brian R, I’ve learned the dimetrodon sports a “neural spine sail”.
And if it is a dimetrodon, it’s closer to mammals than to lizards. (Wikipedia. Wikipedia also says they ate sharks and “became extinct some 40 million years before the first appearance of dinosaurs.” (I do enjoy the more inclusive and diverse B.C. universe.)
(wondering if anyone can write “dimetrodon” now, without hearing the song?)
Wow, guys. You all didn’t get this? (Except Pete?)
He’s a dimetrodon. The only way a dimetrodon can lie on his back is do to it in the water. That’s the big reveal in Panel 3 — the reason he’s never seen the sky before.
I thought it was a great visual gag.
We used to take the toddler to the HMNH about every month.The Dimetrodon skeleton is in a nice low cabinet. Dnd yes, the song is quite accurate about Dimetrodons.
https://whatsinaname.hmnh.harvard.edu/dimetrodon
I’m always down for a dimetrodon in a comic strip. It is a cool-looking creature.
They are not dinosaurs, as already has been pointed out, but are often mistaken for dinosaurs and were (still are?) common sights in sets of plastic toy dinosaurs so a lot of kids have grown up seeing them represented as dinosaurs. I used to doodle a series of comics where other prehistoric creatures would call dimetrodons “dinosaurs” due to some comically anachronistic/human behavior. The dimetrodon(s) would angrily respond “I’m NOT a dinosaur!” as a running gag. Well, I thought it was funny…
I agree with Powers (and Pete), with the minor addition that before I noticed the tail in the first panel, I thought it was supposed to be “John” (the Turtle), and not just a random appearance by an unrelated character. It would have made the “reveal” even more of a surprise if the tail had been shown dragging a little below the surface.
I got it right away. The dimetrodon cannot look up. They also lived during the Cisuralian (Early Permian), around 295–272 million years ago. By the time of the late Cretaceous period, about 68 million years ago when the “big one” hit they were gone off the planet in for @200,000,000 years.
Time keeps on slipping slipping into the future!!