Peter and Company

What if to a child, what appeared to be an imaginary friend, was in fact his guardian angel?

Peter and Company is a furry webcomic by artist Jonathan Ponikvar. The first strip is dated January 1, 2005, and has 170 pages in its archive as of December 2011. The comic is a solo project, with Jonathan producing each page using traditional pencil and brush ink instead of digital techniques.

The story revolves around Peter, a 12-year-old cat who is having a difficult time surviving through childhood. One day he makes a new friend in the form of Seth, a white-suited duck. Peter quickly realizes that Seth is only visible to him, providing the backdrop for the rest of the story. Seth follows Peter around in order to offer him advice and guidance through the various plotlines. There are other children who have special friends in the world as well, and each of them can see the others' and even talk to them. Seth and the rest are referred to only as "Guardians," leaving the theological undertones up to the interpretation of the viewer.

Other main characters in the comic include Iggy, a simple-minded gecko who is Peter's only non-Guardian friend; Skin, a snake, and Iggy's Guardian; Chelsea, a bear who is the main antagonist in the comic and Peter's primary bully; Ezzy, Peter's sister, a tomboy-ish calico cat who thinks the Guardians are "ghosts" haunting their home; the Worms, a sub-set of Guardians who are troublemakers and thrive on chaos; and Whitney, Peter's main crush and love interest, who is actually directly based on the artist's real-life wife of the same name.

The commentary on each page reveals that the comic is semi-autobiographical; while the artist claims that he did not have an imaginary friend growing up, the majority of situations that Peter finds himself in are directly based on events that did happen to him. In his foreword for the first Peter & Company book collection, he reveals that Peter is meant to be himself at age 12, while Seth is his modern-day representation. In other words, the entire comic can be viewed as Jonathan giving himself advice he wished he could have received when facing these problems as a child.

The first 75 strips of the archives are presented in a four-panel newspaper format. After that point it changes to a full-page comic with varying panel layouts. A few comics are also in color, which are presented as bonuses for donations made by the readers.