Before the launch of long running Furry Webcomic Sabrina Online, author Eric Schwartz cut his teeth with his characters in Sabrina at See-CAD a comic strip published in "Above Ground" a student newsletter at the Columbus College of Art & Design. The strip was in publication from 1993 to 1994. In its short twenty two strip run, familiar elements of the later Online webcomic such as Sabrina, Amy and Tabitha are present... but get ready for plenty of Early-Installment Weirdness including Sabrina's then boyfriend Michael Fox.
The series track's Sabrina's time in art school, stressing out over homework assignments and interacting with spoofs of real professors at Columbus College of Art & Design, resemblance to persons living or dead be dammed!
Reprints of See-CAD in its entirety have been included as a bonus feature in collections of the later Online series, such as the introduction of the book Sabrina Online A Decade in Black and White.
Sabrina at See-CAD contains the following tropes:
- A Degree in Useless: The conversation between Eric and Sabrina at the end of the series.Sabrina: "So where do you go from here?"Eric: "I think Taco Bell has an opening."
- Author Avatar: Eric Squirrel shows up at the end of the series graduating from college in the penultimate strip.
- Art Evolution:
- Sabrina's tail is quite longer in See-CAD than it would be in the later Online webcomic.
- The black fur on Sabrina's face is often filled in beneath her glasses in See-CAD as well. The later Online would leave the fur underneath her glasses as white or a light gray, to allow the character's eyes to be drawn easier and would only show all black fur when Sabrina had removed her glasses.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Several of Sabrina's defining character traits from the later Online, her love of Amiga Computers, The Transformers, etc. are noticeably absent in See-CAD. Michael Fox, Sabrina's boyfriend in the later strips of See-CAD is ultimately Put on a Bus and mostly ignored in Online.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Unlike the later Online series which spoofs the trope, it is played straight in See-CAD when Sabrina complains about getting paint on her fur in art class.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Sabrina falls asleep naked in the shower. A commentary box calls out the reader saying "No Drooling."
- Joke of the Butt: Happens when Sabrina sits down on her paint pallet in class.
- My Beloved Smother: Although not seen or named in the strip, a sudden phone call asking Sabrina to babysit Tabitha on short notice establishes a running character trait Sabrina's mother Endora would have through-out the later Online series.
- Nerd Glasses: Sabrina's defining shades... although her nerdiness is certainly downplayed in See-CAD compared to her later stories. A strip mentions Sabrina wears glasses in lieu of comically oversized contacts.
- Not a Morning Person: Sabrina falls asleep in the shower, complains about drinking decaf coffee and ends up falling asleep in class.
- Ridiculous Procrastinator: Sabrina struggles with this frequently in the strip, even yelling at the Interactive Narrator for trying to force her to start her homework.
- Sadist Teacher: The professional illustrator professor who claims he doesn't want to teach his students how to be better than him because he views them as potential competition in the field. The liner notes point out the professor is a Take That! to a real teacher who was working at the Columbus College of Art & Design at the time the strip was published.
- Schrödinger's Canon: See-CAD is treated as this by the later Online. While Michael and Sabrina's sex scene is retconned away to preserve the trope of Nerds Are Virgins by the time Sabrina meets Richard in the later series; a bonus story depicting Amy and Thomas's wedding in Online had Sabrina crossing paths again with Michael who seems upset to find out she has a new boyfriend by then, making their history in the later Online canon a bit unclear. Likewise in Online Sabrina went to college at Ohio State, with Amy naming the college
◊ as where she met Thomas. - Shout-Out:
- Animaniacs gets a few, with Sabrina watching an episode while procrastinating her homework. Tabitha also copies her dialogue from Mindy as well.
- Sabrina's stress paying her tuition at the college bursar mimics William Shatner's over-acting style in Star Trek: The Original Series.
- The Garfield coffee mug Sabrina uses.
- Starving Student: Implied by Sabrina's panic while paying her tuition.
