At various times in his comic-book career, Shane has forsaken the larger, longer format for the zen-like simplicity of the one-to-four-panel strip. A long-time fan and (more often) irritated critic of the newspaper funny-page, Shane has tried his hand at stripping (not the pasties and g-string kind) numerous times, starting in his early childhood and continuing long into his adult childhood.

Here are but a few examples.

The Awfuls

From the mercifully forgotten year of 1987 comes the original online comic strip. With artwork composed entirely of ascii text, The Awfuls was earmarked to forge new ground in the pre-web, pre-internet era that was dominated by the lowly Bulletin Board Systems only the most ardent computer nerds knew about. Sadly, Bedlam, the intended venue, was never launched, and the Awful family was consigned to an obscure fate that offered an even narrower audience than it might have enjoyed had been made available to the intended dozen-strong dial-up crowd.