Early Bird Cameo / Webcomics

• Apricot Cookie(s)!: Both Moonlight Spritzer (introduced in chapter 3) and Princess Almond (introduced in chapter 5) can be seen in chapter 1 as figurines/keychains on Apricot's nightstand.
• Crimson Knights: Sir Lathai appears a couple of times in the early chapters, before being properly introduced in Chapter 18.
• Evil Plan featured a sneak peek of Amical and Billy from morphE, 6 months before morphE was launched. Evil Plan's creator is sprite artist for the morphE webcomic and it was in design phase when this page of EP was published.
• Homestuck:
  • Early in the comic, John reads a dubiously educational programming textbook called "Data Structures For Assholes", written in an extremely abusive style by someone called Buckminster Funnyuncle. Later in the comic, Karkat Vantas, a popular character with an interest in programming and a "virtually identical" writing style is introduced. Funnyuncle even talks about "wriggling about in viscous secretions", which fits Karkat's Bizarre Alien Biology theme perfectly. When Karkat first appeared, a few fans theorised that he was Funnyuncle. In the Homestuck books, while the story was not edited directly in keeping with Andrew Hussie's Writing by the Seat of Your Pants policy, the commentary asks the reader to "Just imagine all the text in the book is capitalized, and that it was written by Karkat".
  • At the end of the first Intermission, Spades Slick comes across a view screen that shows him a view of a gray-skinned, horned child and a crustacean sprite. The child is Karkat, who had already appeared through text but who would be revealed as an alien for some time still; the sprite is Karkat's lusus naturae, who wouldn't debut properly for another full act.
• I Love Yoo: Used to introduce lots of characters, including:
  • Yujing is depicted briefly in the Black and White formal arc, before being properly introduced in the mall a few episodes later.
  • Shin-Ae's stalker, or older sister is shown long before her introduction, and can be spotted in the background of a lot of earlier scenes.
  • Alyssa is shown in a WouTube video, alongside being mentioned by other characters before officially being introduced during the black and white formal.
  • Sang-Chul is depicted creeping on Shin-Ae during the masquerade ball before being properly introduced a few episodes later.
• Kill Six Billion Demons: 000001 has a brief appearance at the Concordance of the Demiurges, where Mottom dismisses her as a "paper-pusher" for her God-Emperor Mammon. In her next appearance, she turns out to be Mammon's Dragon-in-Chief, capable of facing Mottom in battle with a gigantic axe made of fire.
• In Kuro Shouri, Kakon has several short appearances in early chapters, but joins the main cast much later on.
• Legend of the Blue Diamond: Asher makes a cameo in Chapter 11 as a prison guard, but gets a proper introduction in Chapter 20.
• In Ménage à 3, one of the many passer-bys who are impressed by DiDi's assets shows obvious A-Cup Angst in the first panel here. She returns as a psych student who thinks she can treat Yuki's problems. The author uses a Brick Joke to establish that she's the same person. When first we see her again, she's reading a pamphlet about breast enlargement.
• Narbonic: Caliborn makes an early appearance about six months into the strip during one of the "Dave In Slumberland" segments as an unnamed demon.
• NEXT!!! Sound of the Future: Two main characters, Roll and Gumiya, have a brief appearance in the afterword of chapter 2, where they are used as examples of how naming conventions work for Vocaloids before being properly introduced in chapter 4.
• The Order of the Stick: Sunny the beholder, who is a major character in the final book, briefly appears in Book 1 during a fourth wall breaking gag, leaving readers thinking that they would never appear again so it is a huge surprise when they show up again.
• Outsider: The Loroi pilots Talon and Spiral, and another officer named Cloud, are first seen in passing in #41. Talon doesn't reappear until #111, when she's tasked with showing Jardin some star charts. Spiral appears shortly thereafter in #113. Cloud is in a handful of panels as a background character, but isn't actually introduced to Jardin until #162 as part of Spiral leading the other Loroi on the shuttle who haven't been formally introduced to Jardin to do so.
• Rusty and Co.: An unnamed cleric seen briefly in one panel at the end of level 7 turns out to be Derek Hyssop (aka "Derek the cleric"), who was previously mentioned by Madeline and plays an important role in the next story arc.
• Sailor Moon CS:
  • Minako can be seen briefly in issue 4.
  • A Miss Meioh appears in issue 2.
  • The rainbow crystals and associated youma appear earlier than they did in the anime.
• The Sanity Circus: During one of the Fourth Wall Mail Slots, as Luther the violin answers a question about his fellow Instrumen Steven the flute can be seen silhouetted in the background.
• Shortpacked!:
  • In one strip, a nameless woman working at a supermarket shows up. A while later she begins dating one of the main characters and became one herself. When the author went back and titled some of his earlier strips he called the one she appeared in "She'll Show Up More Later".
  • Lucy originally appeared as an unnamed girl in a non-canon strip making fun of the New 52.
• Sluggy Freelance: Two of the main characters in Chapter 68 get these. Dr. Vistuvius first appears in a single panel of Chapter 67 as a potential ally to the heroes, at which time they decide not to make contact with him. Sylvia's role in Chapter 8 goes little beyond Nominal Importance, and it's easy to miss that, unlike her fellow vampires, she isn't shown being Killed Off for Real after her Non-Lethal K.O.. It's nevertheless a long time between her appearance then and her adventures in Chapter 68 (synchronous to Chapters 66 and 67).
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: When showing Trond getting recruited at his retirement party in a flashback, one of the party's guests, of whom only the lower part of the face and upper body is shown, is shown wishing Trond a happy retirement. Once main character Sigrun Eide is introduced, it becomes quite obvious that the guest in question was actually her.
• unOrdinary: In episode 3, well over a hundred episodes before he gets named or becomes an important character, Terrance appears briefly as the boy that Gavin was bullying before John stepped in to defend him.
• Unsounded: Long before he's properly introduced or named Karl shows up with General Bell when Bell kills a chirography operator to hide his involvement in the silver in Ethelmik and prevent word of what's happening there from getting out. He steals the victim's hairpiece from her corpse.
• Weak Hero:
  • In Episode 91, Ben visits the hospital to get a check-up for his arm. While he's leaving, a boy called Kenny is rolled into the doctor's office in the background. It's not until ten episodes later that Kenny is revealed to be Jake's brother and shows up in the story proper.
  • Jake mentions in passing that his friend Eunchan was suspended from school long before Eunchan shows up in the flesh.
• Wilde Life has a fair few. For example, Oscar and Cliff barely avoid meeting a chapter early, with a bonus Kevin cameo.

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