Boston and Shaun

Boston and Shaun is a webcomic created by Shaun Reveal. The comic first appeared on the net on Feburary 12, 1997 and had been reinvented a number of times, most recently in 2005.

Boston and Shaun features a continuous storyline. Strips usually consist of three cells, although the author has been known to experiment with different formats. Initial strips were in black and white, but most are in color.

The comic has never had a consistent release schedule - while prior versions have had over 900 strips, there were only five updates in 2007, and it has gone without updates for nine months as of September 2008.

The main characters are the eponymous Boston and Shaun. Supporting characters include Shaun's parents and younger brother Donald, as well as Boston's parents and Shaun's classmates, teacher, and babysitter.

Characters
Shaun Wallaby Boston Wildfire Nova Wildfire Cosmo Wildfire Diana Wallaby Donald Wallaby Shaun's Father (No name yet) Ginger Alex
 * Shaun is the in-universe representation of the author. He's a grey kangaroo youth with 16 colored stars on his body. He is also the only male in the comic to have a pouch. The roo has the mutant ability to learn how to make potions inside his body after drinking one.
 * A green dragon youth that has the ability to breathe fire, and to both grow and shrink down small enough to fit into Shaun's pouch. While inside, she enjoys putting Shaun in uncomfortable situations in order to trigger his "bulking" mutant power, which makes his belly swell to become large and bloated. She likes to use Shaun's belly as a pillow.
 * Boston's mother is a yellow dragon.
 * Boston's father is a yellow dragon with a cut ear.
 * Shaun's mother is a light brown kangaroo.
 * Shaun's young brother is a light brown roo like his mother.
 * A dark brown kangaroo.
 * A female purple T-Rex and one of Shaun's class mates.
 * A scary male cat raccoon and one of Shaun's class mates.

Changes over time
Shaun has been reinvented the most in the series. He started out as a teenager at the beginning and he was changed into a six year kid in its next phase. He soon was reinvented another time into a kangaroo, but his age didn't change. Boston didn't change much in the series, but she became a kangaroo dragon in the phase where Shaun was a young child.

Review and criticism
A prior version of Boston and Shaun was featured as Something Awful's Awful Link of the Day on 20 September 2004. The associated article took a mocking tone, its author describing the comic as "the greatest gift any of us could have hoped for," and complimenting Shaun on "an unmatched ability to fragment what should be a straight-forward narrative into a series of panels that are so irrelevant as to border on the abstract."

A fandom reviewer at everything2 dismisses early strips as "mildly funny, but hardly the stuff of brilliance," describing later strips as "messed-up oddness" in "garish" color.

The grammar and spelling of early strips has been criticized in most reviews, and was the subject of at least one parody.