Web Comic / Sabrina Online

Sabrina Online was a Furry Webcomic created by Eric W. Schwartz, who consistently managed to release the comic's monthly batches of strips on time for twenty years (1996 to 2016).

The comic's story revolves around the Slice of Life tales of Sabrina, a quiet skunk who works as a web designer. Unable to find another job after being replaced by a clip-art library, Sabrina finds work as the webmaster for ZZ Studios, a porn studio run by its star and namesake, Zig Zag. The tone is gently restrained, with an uncomfortable heroine growing used to her new job—and an eventual love interest—while her friends (including her living Transformers toys!) around her have their own personal adventures in life and love.

Schwartz brought the series proper to an end on the 15th of September 2016, twenty years to the day of the first strip's publication. His announcement said the final strip won't be the last, but subsequent stories will be on a "when the mood strikes" basis, rather than monthly updates to the comic.

Not to be confused with that Sabrina or that Sabrina, or even the 1954 film called Sabrina.

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Sabrina Online contains the following tropes:

• Adorkable: Sabrina and R.C.
• All There in the Script: Thomas's parents (Roy and Sarah Woolfe) are named in notes in their debut strip, and Amy's father (Carl Squirrel) is named in the title of the debut strip for Amy's parents. Averted with Amy's mother (Carrie), as well as Sabrina and R.C.'s parents: Warren and Endora (last name unknown), and Conrad and Rainflower Conrad, are named in-strip.
• Altar the Speed: Discussed but averted as seeing it on a sitcom doesn't mean it will work. Amy wanted to marry before having the baby out of wedlock, but instead the marriage happened after the birth, resulting in the baby crying during the ceremony.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: R.C.'s parents are open and accepting parents who are very concerned to find out whether his sex life with Sabrina is as fulfilling as it should be, mortifying the shy man beyond belief. His father pushes it even further by asking "what it's like with a skunk girl" because he'd always fantasized about it.
  • For example, the first time Sabrina met R.C.'s parents, they slipped into his apartment (they have a key) while they were sleeping naked after a night of sex.
  • Apparently R.C.'s dad grabbed Zig Zag's ass at their wedding. Not that she minded, just that she never expected Sabrina's parents-in-law to be so open.
  • Then there's Amy's dad:◊
    Carl: CARRIE!! Come out and meet your grandchild!!
    Carrie: My WHAT!?
• Anything That Moves: Zig Zag, though she exaggerates this to get a rise out of Sabrina.
• Art Evolution: Averted; the strip pretty much looks the same now as it did in 1996. Though the quality is such that this is hardly something to complain about.
• Art Shift: Sabrina's webcomic that is an expy of herself drawn in a grittier style. Lampshaded to no end, of course!
• Artistic License – Law: Zig Zag's trial for beating up Sabrina's mugger. Rule of Funny and Rule of Drama (as well as courtroom cliches) were in full effect.
• Aside Glance: Often enough to smash the fourth wall.
• Author Appeal: Sabrina's Amiga advocacy, the talking Transformers toys, and, by Schwartz's own admission, the inclusion of Zig Zag.
• Back for the Finale: (A very pregnant) Carli and Spike (who had been Out of Focus for a few years) show up in the final strips as virtual guests (via livestreaming) at Sabrina's wedding. Carli goes into labor, but refuses to go to the hospital until she actually sees Sabrina say "I do."
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: The entire cast.
  • Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Subverted; Sabrina's pants are actually skunk-print.
• Berserk Button: Bringing up Zig Zag's past as anything other than a set of facts (and even that chafes).
  • It's also hinted that Zig doesn't take kindly to anyone who tries to hurt her or her friends.◊
  • An arc launched in December 2010 implies she doesn't take kindly to the G.I.F.T. in action.
  • In June 2014, a psychiatrist states outright that she has several buttons that can cause her to react adversely.
• Big "NO!": When the Decepticon Transformers toys heard that Sabrina was getting a replacement◊ Revenge of the Fallen Optimus Prime... after what when on before Timothy stepped in, you can't blame them in the least bit!
• Big Sister Instinct: If Zig Zag has anything to do with it, Tabitha will not be acting in adult movies.
• Bleached Underpants: Eric Schwartz's own commissioned stuff, plus the porn-based origins of much of the supporting cast. (Although the whole "they're porn stars" premise is not hidden at all in the comic.)
  • Special mention goes to Sabrina, which the artist has done nothing erotic of, even on his adult art site. The closest thing he ever did of naughty Sabrina art was an oil painting◊ of her in a pose out of a well-known Victorian-era nude painting. In fact, he rather vehemently goes after risque Sabrina fan-art on the web, for all the good that does, or at least nothing that he publicly distributes. Privately, however, it is known that he has indeed drawn porn of the character, and a small amount has leaked out onto the web.
• Bookends: One of the first storylines was of Amy's new boyfriend Thomas, which led to Amy's pregnancy, complete with a comic showing her egg facing down a swarm of sperm. The main comic ended with Sabrina and Richard's wedding, followed by their honeymoon, and a direct Call Back to that comic to show Sabrina's pregnancy.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Zig Zag complains◊ of her lack of friends to hang out with:
  With the others it's about business, or sex... or sexy business.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Special strips for holidays - most especially April Fools - will be completely and utterly medium-aware. The main storyline has some◊ moments◊ of this as well.
  Amy: Must be tough waiting so long to get a car. [points out to the viewer] To them, too.
  Timothy: [Waves 'Hi']
• British Brevity: Sabrina Online is sort of a webcomic version of this, since Schwartz produce an average of three or four strips a month. Not much for a webcomic, but usually enough to keep his fans happy.
• Broken Aesop: The comic had a series of strips in December 2010 which were a reference to the sequence in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where the two heroes go on the road and beat up everyone who ever criticized them on the Internet. It works in the film because it's entirely in-character. In the comic, however, it's a series of Take That!s against the strip's critics. One notable strip involves Zig Zag, the viewpoint character for this sequence, beating up a guy who said mean things about her because he thinks he can say anything on the Internet without consequences. This isn't exactly true, but that's not the Broken Aesop. What's broken is the fact that Zig is the owner and star of her own porno company. You know, the industry that has historically relied on First Amendment rights to stay in business? And the "consequences" bit doesn't work either, because legally, Zig Zag committed real-world, premeditated, first-degree assault against a guy who knows her name, her face, and could easily press charges. The implication is that she'll suffer no repercussions at all, but this is later subverted: the incident is mentioned during her trial◊ for assaulting Sabrina's mugger, and we eventually learn◊ that Zig was convicted and paid a fine.
• But We Used a Condom: Discussed and mildly fauxshadowed prior to Sabrina and R.C.'s first time.◊ R.C. mentioned the condom he had was sitting in his wallet for a couple years. Fortunately, nothing goes wrong, and Sabrina doesn't get pregnant until their wedding night at the end of the series.
• Call Back: The strip ends with #815, and a direct call back to Strip #14.^note Implying the conception of Danielle, their daughter from the Flash Forward strips It's even lampshaded.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Fairly early on, Sabrina gently but firmly tells her mom to back the hell off.
• Cheerful Child: Tabitha.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The mugger Sabrina sprays in Strip 205◊? He reappears in 641.◊ And he recognizes Sabrina.
• Cool Big Sis: Zig Zag, to Sabrina's younger sister (by 19 years), Tabitha.
• Cool Shades: Tina Lynx.
• Covert Pervert: Sabrina, as shown here.◊
• Cursed with Awesome: Doesn't actually happen by trope in the comic, but the phrase itself (word for word) is on one guy's shirt◊ in a recent strip... before he gets curb-stomped by a VERY PISSED-OFF Zig Zag.
• Cutaway Gag: Lampshaded and crossed with a Shout-Out here◊.
  Sabrina: It's tough keeping up with Tabitha, isn't it?
  Zig-Zag: You're telling me! It's harder than picking camera angles for a scene with an elephant!
  [Cutaway to a camera's eye view: only the top of Zig's face is visible, with an elephant looming the background]
  Zig-Zag: Can you see anything?
  Cameraman: Maybe if I backed all the way out of the room...
  [Cut back to Zig and Sabrina, the latter looking very confused]
  Sabrina: What the hell was THAT!?
  Zig-Zag: Hey, we work in media! We should have more power to set up random cutaways than some fat New England guy!
• Dark and Troubled Past: Zig Zag. Most of the May and June 2015 strips go into the details.
• Dark Horse Victory: Grimlock winning the election for leadership of Sabrina's Transformers toys. Sabrina figured Optimus Prime would be the likely winner, but Arcee points out that Sabrina has a dozen versions◊ of Optimus, and split the vote.
• A Date with Rosie Palms/Caught with Your Pants Down: In one of the early strips, Sabrina decides to indulge in some "hands-on" "cybering" with her (then still-unseen) internet boyfriend, Richard. She's just getting into... things... when her roommate, Amy, walks in on her. (This later earns Richard the nickname "Sticky Fingers".)
  • Also in that time-frame Carli the Chinchilla was eavesdropping on Sabrina and Richard during THAT session.
• Death Glare: Amy does a truly magnificent one in this strip.◊
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: In this strip◊, Sabrina's mugger blurts out a comment that proves he's Too Dumb to Live.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: Unsurpringly, Zig Zag has a sixth sense about this sort of thing.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Say mean things on the internet about Zig Zag and she'll hunt you down to administer beatings◊ and\or psychological◊ torture◊.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": The one time Sabrina calls Zig Zag by her real (last) name, Zig Zag pointedly tells her "my name is Zig Zag."
• Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female: Averted at the porn convention hotel when Sabrina slaps some sense into Zig. Zig snaps out of it and admits that she went too far and nearly fell into the same patterns that she suffered herself, leading into some Character Development and a closer friendship for the two. Not that Zig stops from teasing the hell out of Sabrina either.
• Embarrassing Nickname: In the Flash Forward, Timmy prefers to be called "Tim" at age 16.
• Everyone Has Standards: In the Fast Forward arc, Zig Zag outright refuses to let Tabitha do work in the porn studio, other than the office stuff, citing that she's known the girl she she was five and Tabitha is practically her little sister.
• Eye Scream: Zig Zag gets a scare when she wakes up and finds she has a subconjunctival hemorrhage of the eye, but her doctor says that it's essentially just a bruise.
  • She then decides to make the temporary protective eyepatch work for her by filming some pirate-themed porn.
• Fantastic Racism: Zig Zag, as a mixed-breed (her grandfather was a Siberian Tiger and her closer ancestry were skunks), was deemed "too exotic" for mainstream TV or movies, so she went into porn instead◊. She got bullied in school, too.
• The Faceless: Both Carli's husband and Thomas' father are wolves who, possibly as a species trait, are much taller than anyone else, thus they are only "shot" from the neck down for long periods to avoid awkward scene angles.
  • Though Spike, Carli's husband, has had his face shown on his first (at the time un-named) appearance, and several times more since (he was sitting, so his head was level with Carli's).
• Flame Bait: In-universe: After a scrape with the Image Boards, Zig Zag discovers that mentioning her name is enough to cause bouts of fury◊.
• Flash Forward: The strips for October 2015 through February 2016 play with this trope; they're set in Next Sunday A.D., but they're written as if the characters had aged in Real Time since the story began (while the rest of the strip uses Comic-Book Time).
  • In the Flash Forward, Sabrina and RC have a 10-year-old child, Amy and Thomas have a second child, Endora has dementia, and Tabitha has a job as Zig Zag's errand girl^note Zig Zag said outright she'd never employ Tabitha herself in porn, as she sees her as a little sister while also lusting over Timmy.
• Four-Fingered Hands: The entire cast.
• Frame Break: Sabrina once grabbed the comic frame.◊
• Freudian Excuse (Averted)/Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Zig Zag refuses to blame any of her behavior on her tragic past, and hates it when anyone tries.
• Fridge Horror: Sabrina experiences this In-Universe after she fends off a mugger◊.
• Friends with Benefits: Invoked in this strip◊; Zig Zag is this with just about all her single friends, including (especially?) her best friend and confidant Tina Lynx.
• Funny Background Event: Rocket ship!◊
• Genki Girl: Carli.
• Girl-on-Girl Is Hot: Some people watching the studio's webcam show certainly think so.◊
• Girls Behind Bars: While in jail◊ Zig Zag is annoyed that she doesn't have a cellmate to play out any "jailhouse dominance fantasies" on.
• Glasses Girl: Sabrina.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: Happens with Thomas◊ when he finds out Amy is pregnant with Timothy.
• Good Bad Girl: Tina Lynx.
• Gory Discretion Shot: The comic dealing with Sabrina's stabbing cuts from the mugger recognizing her to someone finding her and calling 911.
• The Grim Reaper: Comes for Sabrina after her stabbing◊, only to realize he's made "a clerical error" and go away.
• Hands-Off Parenting: Richard's hippie parents.
• Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Here's an example.◊
  • Or, for a slightly earlier one:
  "I'd pay you fifty bucks to watch you do something suggestive with a banana."◊
• Her Codename Was Mary Sue: Sabrina's webcomic.
• She Who Fights Monsters When Zig Zag discovers her name is a Berserk Button on Image Boards.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Richard's first appearances were as "RC", Sabrina's unseen online "friend".
• The Hedonist: Zig Zag. So much.
  • A lot of the staff at the studio could count too, with Sabrina and Darke Katt possibly being the only exceptions.
  • R.C.'s parents also count.
• Heel Realization: In this◊ July 2015 strip, Zig Zag's counseling about her past makes her realize her past antics (like hunting down to attack the people who insulted her online, physically attacking the mugger who almost murdered Sabrina and her sexual harassment of Sabrina to the brink of raping her) is behaviour exactly like her abusive father.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Carli, a chinchilla and her husband Spike, a wolf. Also, Thomas' parents, a fox and another wolf, respectively.
• Hulk Speak: Grimlock, one of the Transformer toys who was running for president delivers a speech using this◊.
  • And when trying to face down◊ a certain Transformer-terrorizing toddler◊... with hilarious results◊!
• Humiliation Conga: What happens to the mugger in the January 2013 strip when not one, but several of Sabrina's friends track him down.
• Hype Aversion: An In-Universe example in this strip◊; when Sheila recommends My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Sabrina reacts by saying that she's "just not caught up in pony hype". She does ask to be called if any robots show up so her stance on this may have changed◊.
• I Banged Your Mom: In response to a teenage Troll who called her an unattractive slut, Zig Zag went to his house◊ and met his mother; when the boy shows up, he finds that his (divorced) mother finds Zig very attractive.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In a variation, Zig Zag is more infatuated with Sabrina than in love, knows it, and just wants her to loosen up and enjoy life more.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Sabrina 15 years into the future laments having gained weight, though R.C doesn't seem to mind.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Zig Zag to Richard◊... in SCARY detail.
  • When a mugger stabs Sabrina and leaves her for dead (she gets better), she tracks him down and beats him to an inch of his life with her bare hands.
• Image Boards/Troll: A two◊-part◊ discussion.
  • G.I.F.T.:Brought up almost by name in the second half.
    • The "anonymity" part has been subverted◊ and Zig got◊ her◊ revenge◊
    • Zig Zag eventually learns to use their own weapons against them.◊
• Informed Ability: Before going into porn, Zig Zag was aiming to be a professional actress. Subverted when said abilities were shown during a visit to Sabrina's family, leading to a subtle Crowning Moment of Funny...
  Endora: I don't see how someone can be taken seriously with a name like that.
  Zig Zag: *in cheerful tone* Why? Am I supposed to be taken seriously?
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Subverted and lampshaded; during Amy's pregnancy, she borrows a pair of Sabrina's pants, which gives her skunk colored legs◊. Sabrina breaks the fourth wall to accuse the readers of thinking she was walking around half naked the entire time. (Of course, since she's drawn before, during, and after that as being essentially pants-less, well...)
  • To the point of "Sabrina's clothes"◊ becoming a Running Gag for some fan artists.
• Interspecies Romance: Discussed in strip 68 - the first of Janurary 1999
• In the Style of...: 1990's era Warner Bros. cartoons, such as Animaniacs. In fact, some of the character roster might have actually influenced them, such as Amy, who was first drawn in 1988.
  • Arguably, Tabitha looks and acts as a Dot expy.
  • Author Appeal: Schwartz used music from these very cartoons in some of his animations from the early 90s.
• Jail Bait Wait: Adult Tabitha seems to be infatuated with the 16 year-old Timmy, who Sabrina remarks won't be legal for a few more years. Tabitha doesn't seem to mind the wait, having already decided that Timmy will be hers.
• Jerk Ass: Darke Katt. A perpetual grouch who would put even Oscar to shame, she refuses to socialize with the others in the studio, let alone be in their films. She can't stand her job as the janitor and the only reason she hasn't left is because she has nowhere else to go and that the others are polite to her, giving her money and shelter for her work◊.
  • Sabrina's Optimus Prime toy, which went on a rampage◊ beating up the Decepticon figurines until Timothy stepped in and intervened◊!
    Timothy: You really need to calm down.
    • To be precise, it's a Movie Optimus toy, which explains his Ax-craziness. Also:
      Optimus Prime: "Decepticon... GIVE ME YOUR FACE!"
• Karma Houdini: Zig Zag is basically able to do whatever she wants whenever she wants to whoever she wants with little to no consequence, up to and including stalking, sexual harassment, and physical assault.
  • Actually, averted. Sure that having a talented lawyer takes care of the remaining lawsuits, but she still has to pay a lot of money for it◊, and it's also implied that she was banned from Finland as a result of her revenge◊.
  • Swiftly averted for the mugger.
  • Zig Zag ends up in jail and tried for the revenge attack, and the previous episode with the internet trolls got brought up as evidence against her. It gets Double Subverted when the mugger sees a recovered Sabrina and can't believe how good she looks after he messed her up, in the middle of court; it seems to earn Zig enough sympathy points for a reduced sentence.
• Living Toys: Sabrina's toys have their own little society, complete with a president (a Transformers Animated Blackarachnia figure). They refer to Sabrina as "The Mistress".
• LOLCats: Used as a coping mechanism◊ (see Image Boards/Troll above.)
• Longest Pregnancy Ever: Amy was pregnant with Timothy from Feb. 1997 to Jan. 2000.
• Long Pants: Sabrina wears pants that◊ do not look like pants.
• Long Runner: Believe it or not, a subversion; in the traditional sense, yes, the webcomic has been up for twenty years uninterupted. But it isn't a long runner in the sense of number of strips, as it only got to 815 strips.
• Lysistrata Gambit: Inverted◊ and later subverted◊
  • Zig Zag◊ does a variation of this to an internet troll who essentially said she was such a slut that that he wouldn't have sex with her even if she walked up to him and asked for it.
• Made of Iron: Sabrina doesn't seem bothered at all at being stabbed several times, including in the head.
• Mary Sue: The In-Universe reaction to Sabrina's web comic◊ is that her Author Avatar is one of these.
• Medium Awareness
• Meganekko: Sabrina.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Zig Zag is three quarters skunk, one quarter white tiger.
  • Timothy is a quarter fox, a quarter wolf and half squirrel.
    Thomas: Zoologically speaking, shouldn't this also be impossible?
    Amy: Well, that's why we have comic strips.
• Mood Whiplash: The surprisingly dark story arc from late 2012 to early 2013 ends with one of the living Transformers toys being comedically thrown out the window for an Incredibly Lame Pun.
• Ms. Fanservice: Zig Zag, obviously. Sheila and Amy also qualify.
• My Beloved Smother: Endora, Sabrina's ultra-conservative mom.
• Not So Different: Played with here◊.
  • Happens again here◊, albeit unintentionally on Schwartz's part. See also She Who Fights Monsters above.
• Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: What R.C.'s dad said after revealing he was beginning to think R.C. was gay before he met Sabrina.
• Not What It Looks Like: Invoked: Zig Zag deliberately makes a lunchtime invitation to Richard look like a proposition for sex, much to his bewilderment.
  Play along. Sabrina and I are taking you out to lunch.
• Nude-Colored Clothes: Sabrina's pants.
• Obvious Pregnancy: Amy skips from not showing to this.◊
• Odd Friendship: Zig Zag and Endora seem to have become friends◊ after Sabrina and R.C.'s wedding.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When Sabrina goes to a convention with Zig Zag and discovers there is only one room—and one bed.
  • Amy and Thomas's reaction to Sabrina moving out.
  • Zig Zag in this strip's final panel◊
• Only One Name: After two decades, we still don't know Sabrina's last (now maiden) name. (Accepted Fanon says it's simply "Skunk")
  • Lampshaded in Comic #809◊:
    Minister: I now present you all, for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Richard and Sabrina Conrad!
    Someone offscree: Oh so THAT'S her last name!
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Zig Zag only uses her real name for legal purposes. Sabrina only knows her name because she saw it on tax records. The audience only knows her last name ("Zumbrowski"◊).
• P.O.V. Cam: The first panel of this◊ comic.
• Prison Rape: The 676◊th strip implies that Sabrina's attacker is about to get acquainted with his cellmate a lot more than he'd wish. Complete with Oh, Crap! face, of course.
  • Subverted with Zig Zag◊; when she gets arrested for beating up Sabrina's mugger, she's annoyed that she doesn't have a jail mate.
• Really Gets Around: Zig Zag.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Arguably Sabrina (blue) and Zig Zag (red), the former being a somewhat reserved computer/Transformers nut and the latter an outgoing porn star legend.
• Resistance Is Futile: Played for laughs here.◊
• The Reveal: Sabrina's online crush, R.C.◊
• Ripped from the Headlines: In 2008, the Transformers toys hold an election with Grimlock defending his presidency against Blackarachnia. The outcome of the election was tied to the result of the 2008 U.S. election, with Grimlock representing McCain and Blackarachnia representing Obama; Obama won, so Blackarachnia takes over.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Zig Zag goes on one against the chat room people who made fun of her movies and performances. She takes her porn very seriously.
  • This December 2012 strip◊ indicated that Amy would have this response to Sabrina's stabbing.
    • And then the trope was parodied in the January 2013 strips. First, Zig Zag beat the crap out of the mugger. Then Amy found him and gave him a kick just because she wanted to. Then Richard found him...
• Screaming Birth: Amy's labor was really difficult and she was hollering like a banshee◊, but she was loudest when she realized just when she was signing into the hospital that she and Thomas hadn't married yet◊.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • Strip 49◊ has Sabrina meet Schwartz's Author Avatar and call him a "loser" behind his back.
  • Strips 602◊ and 603◊ show Sabrina explaining her ideas for a comic project of hers (including a schedule and an art style mirroring those of Sabrina Online itself), only to have Amy criticize her choices as ridiculous.
    Amy: (looks straight at the reader) So, you buying any of this?
• Shaped Like Itself: Sabrina wears skunk-print pants.
• She Is All Grown Up: Tabitha during the 15-year time skip seems to have grown quite a slender figure, which the pear-shaped Sabrina is envious about.
  • Timmy also grew up to be quite a hunk at the age of 16. One that Tabitha can't wait to get her paws on.
• Shout-Out: So many, they have their own page.
• Show Within a Show: Sabrina's own Web Comic, Lena's Net Adventures.
  • Art Shift: Used when showing panels from Lena's.
• Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness: It slides an awful lot.
• Sliding Time Scale: Though only a couple of years have passed in-comic, since Sept. 1996, the in-comic world has kept pace with real world events and tech. Which makes early comic gags like Sabrina being impressed that kAmy new how to email files seem odd.
• Sour Prudes: Zig-Zag sometimes (jokingly, one should hope) calls Sabrina a prude because she refuses to become a porn star and because she can sometimes get embarrassed.
• Stalker with a Crush: The "Funny Bunny Man", as Tabitha called him (actually Max Blackrabbit, the fursona of Malcolm Earle, Zig Zag's creator).
• Sunglasses at Night: Tina Lynx, most likely for Purpose 1 of the trope.
• Surprise Pregnancy: Only a surprise to the characters...since Eric was so kind as to show the audience Timmy's conception◊.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: Implied to have happened before Sabrina got her first job.
  Secretary: Remember that one guy who looked confused whenever we said "Computer"?◊
• Theme Naming: Sabrina, Tabitha and Endora are all named after famous fictional witches.
• There Are No Girls on the Internet: Discussed and eventually subverted. One strip even is titled almost exactly that.◊
• There Are No Therapists: Averted - Zig Zag had court-ordered therapy, which she continued to attend after her legal obligation had been satisfied. At least until she slept with him◊.
• There Is Only One Bed: Intentionally set up by Zig Zag—who gets clobbered for it.
• Thought Bubble: Being a baby, most of Timmy's dialogue is shown in one. He even has these before he was born.
• Token Wholesome: Sabrina in her workplace.
• Unusual Euphemism: "Holy dammit Christmas!" At least, it's a euphemism compared to what people would normally say. (And a reference to The Venture Bros..)
  • Also Tabitha's feelings for Timmy, after seeing him mowing his parents' yard.
    Sabrina: What is WITH you?!
    Tabitha: Just—just LOOK at him! I wish he'd push ME around the yard.
    Sabrina: That doesn't even make sense.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Richard's reaction to Sabrina "swap[ping] out this little strip that drains pus and fluid into the gauze" in this strip◊.
• Web Comics Long-Runners: Along with User Friendly, Sluggy Freelance and Kevin & Kell, the longest of the long. However, since Eric only posts 3-5 strips per month, it only passed 800 strips in July 2016. So there's not as much Archive Panic as the others listed here for those who want to get started reading.
• Webcomic Time: The comic ran for twenty years. At the most, around two years passed, storyline-wise.
  • Yet Schwartz keeps mentioning real-life products in the comic... So basically, no more than two years have passed in-universe between Windows 95 being the most recent version of Windows, and Sabrina's toys complaining about the new Revenge Of The Fallen-based Optimus Prime toy.
    • To reference the figure above, if one were to figure every strip wound up averaging one day of time in-universe, time for the main cast is somehow being distorted into running at one tenth the speed of normal time.
    • Subverted several times; Sabrina apparently went to college, and explained that she did this "in the free time between strips" when Amy questions this; another occasion, when Amy wakes up to find her pregnancy greatly developed, and asks "how long between strips, anyway?"
    • Played Straight, Averted, and Lampshaded simultaneously during the Flash Forward arc.
• Wedding-Enhanced Fertility: The final comic strongly implies that Sabrina and Richard just conceived their daughter from the Flash Forward comics on their wedding night.
  • A Christmas 2016 strip confirms they indeed conceived a child.◊
• Wham Episode: The last 2/3 of the strips released at the end of September 2012 have Sabrina stabbed by the mugger she sprayed 11 years ago, though she does make a full recovery.
  • In the third strip released in September 2015, R.C. proposes to Sabrina.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Eric came back for Christmas 2016 to show us Sabrina and R.C. showing off a sonogram of their unborn child.◊
• Where Did We Go Wrong?: Richard's parents. They are ultra-liberal flower-child hippies, and extremely open-minded - and he rebelled by becoming a perfectly straight-laced IT graduate, working tech-support for Microsoft.
  • His dad is convinced it's because they named him after Richard Nixon as a gag. It's implied he was conceived when they were celebrating Nixon's resignation.
    Conrad: —and Richard was born about a year later. It was the happiest moment in both our lives.
    Sabrina: Sounds like you have a great relationship.
    Conrad: We named him after Nixon as a joke. Little did we know it'd make him into such a square.
• Wish Fulfillment: In one arc, Zig Zag steals papers detailing information on a group of trolls (courtesy of a well-meaning Sabrina) and abuses them psychologically and, in one case, physically.
• Write Who You Know: In-Universe. Sabrina starts drawing her own web comic, which is based on events that happened previously in the comic.
• You Bastard: While they don't explicitly say it, this is probably what Sabrina and Tina think of the viewers◊ who want them to joke about Zig Zag's past.
  • Or the author for even bringing it up in the first place.
• Your Mom: Zig-Zag takes this joke to it's logical extreme by tracking down one of her cyber-bullies, who happens to be the ten-year-old son of a divorced mother and actually having sex with his mom. She then twists the knife by coyly whispering "I fucked your mom!" right in his ear.
  • Said mom has since appeared on Schwartz's adult site, her profile states that Zig gave her a job as a porn star, much to her son's dismay.
• YouTube Poop: Several of Schwartz's old animations of the characters.

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