The strip that started it all! Posted in mid-2006 (the actual date in question is lost to time, as Shawn deleted and re-uploaded the archives several times), this was the strip that changed the face of gamer-related webcomics forever, the first shot across the bow signaling the birth of the Shawn Tuckley Empire. Shawn had, of course, made several strips before this – the college strip “College Bytes,” and the Mega Man sprite comic “”, among many others – but this is the one that really put him on the map. 

There’s a charming roughness to this strip compared to what came later (Dinah’s character design, in particular, would see a radical overhaul shortly after this) but hey, we’re all gotta start somewhere! This one strip invented so much of the language of webcomics that we take for granted today, so of course it looks a little quaint. So it goes with history!

This is also, of course, the debut of the classic Red Ring mascot Switchy. For those who might be confused, the concept of a portable/TV-friendly “Switch” console was invented by Shawn way back in 2006, over a decade before Nintendo released their own version. Considering the impact that Switchy had on gamer culture at the time, we have no doubt where Nintendo’s idea originated, and the fact that the release of their “Nintendo Switch” console coincided with Shawn’s trial eventual conviction is not lost on us.