If the Internet was invented so people could post pictures of their cats, webcomics were invented so people could tell cat jokes. Webcomicsdom is filled with megalomaniacal cats, squishy shape-shifting cats, cats with snarky internal monologues, and the ominous ghosts of stillborn kittens.

But among webcomickers, there is one particular cat joke that stands above all over cat jokes: the Schrödinger’s Cat joke. Schrödinger’s Cat is a quantum mechanics thought experiment proposed by Erwin Schrödinger that goes like this: Imagine you have a cat placed in a windowless box, with a rig set up so that there is a 50/50 chance of a poisonous gas is released into the box. This means that there is an equal chance that the cat is alive as dead. According to certain interpretations of quantum mechanics, before you observe the cat to determine whether it is alive or dead, the cat can be said to be simultaneously both alive and dead. It’s a macabre, geeky notion, and it’s perfect for the often macabre, geeky world of webcomics.

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It’s not enough for a webcomic creator to be a great artist, a sparkling writer, and a high-energy networker; they also have to be brilliant entrepreneurs. A handful of creators pay their bills through a combination of merchandise sales, banner ads, commissions, and fan donations, but even they must keep creating new products and looking for new opportunities to monetize their strips. Until now, however, no major webcomic has dared wield the double-edged sword that is product placement.

For anyone interested in how one creator’s earnings breakdown, this infographic from Cat and Girl’s Dorothy Gambrell is worth checking out.

In the last couple weeks, PvP, the popular webcomic created by Scott Kurtz, has been running its first in-comic storyline featuring product placement. For those not familiar with PvP, the comic centers around the staff of a gaming magazine. In the sponsored storyline, business manager Cole and junior staffer Francis head to the Wizards of the Coast offices to pitch a partnership idea to the Magic: The Gathering team.

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Philippa Rice’s My Cardboard Life is a comic with an extra dimension. This crafty webcomic follows the adventures of Cardboard Colin and his abrasive best friend, Paper Pauline. But Rice doesn’t just make her characters out wood pulp; she treats them as actual beings who happen to be made out of origami paper, cardboard, coins, adhesive bandages, cookies – whatever substances appear on the page. That makes for some clever sight gags and plenty of papery puns. And even when My Cardboard Life isn’t playing on its characters’ unusual make-ups, it’s still a delight to watch Rice experiment with their contrasting personalities, from the lovesick Doctor Bandaid to sweet, vulnerable Colin to the often-violent Polar Bear.

We chatted with Philippa Rice over email about the special challenges and delights of a crafted comic, her approach to writing paper characters, and why polar bears are so angry.

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Bill Walko's Teen Titans

A few weeks ago, Chris Sims wrote an excellent piece on ComicsAlliance arguing that Marvel and DC should experiment with publishing webcomics. Sims notes that free webcomics could expose a whole new audience of comic readers to the DC and Marvel universes. He also points out that some of the most widely read superhero comics come from the webcomics world, notably PvP creator Scott Kurtz’s much passed-around Batman story “My Parents Are Dead.”

Creators already working in comics seem perfectly poised to take on such an experiment.  Many of these creators grew up reading superhero comics, have a strong sense of what works online and what doesn’t and are masters of attracting a diverse audience that is willing to buy their wares.

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What if Charles Babbage, inventor of the mechanical computer, and Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer and daughter of Lord Byron, had completed Babbage’s difference engine and then teamed up to fight crime? That’s the premise behind Sydney Padua’s heavily footnoted webcomic 2D Goggles, or The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. The two geniuses battle the evil forces of street music and economic panic while trying to keep their funding and avoid the siren’s song of poetry. Blending historical fact, social commentary, and cartoon zaniness (plus just a dash of steampunk), 2D Goggles offers a smart and silly view of the alternate Victorian past.
Sydney Padua spoke to us over email about her historical inspirations, the appeal of Victorian speculative fiction, and monkeys.

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This week, writer Sam Humphries (CBGB: The Comic Book, Fraggle Rock) and artist Steve Sanders (Uncanny X-Men: The Heroic Age, Sword, Five Fists of Science) released their perverse sci-fi one-shot Our Love is Real. The book, which has a very limited print run but is available through comiXology, is billed as a love story set in a sexually shocking future: Five years after the AIDS vaccine, humanity has run sexually rampant. Human-dog relationships are commonplace. Vegisexuals riot for the right to enhance plants for their physical pleasure. Mineralsexuals claim they can sex with crystals – for hours – without ever touching them. Into this fray steps Jok, a dog-loving riot cop, who is emotionally shaken after an encounter with a beautiful mineralsexual.

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