Peter and Company
is a semi-autobiographical 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 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' companions 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 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.
The comic also has a sequel called Peter And Whitney which skips ahead to the characters in their college days after the guardians have left them.
This comic provides examples of:
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Whitney, an anthropomorphic cat, has purple fur.
- Canon Foreigner: Whitney eventually enters the cast later on in the comic as Peter's first crush.
- Furry Confusion: The comic features anthropomorphic cats, among other species. Yet Korgar has several non-sentient housecats ("minions") that he keeps in his desk and brings to restaurants. Peter, being a cat, freaked out upon discovering them in the desk. But apparently, it's an accepted thing in-universe, as the wolf waitress who served Korgar at the pizza place had no problem with him owning cats or bringing them there. And then there's the fact that Chelsea has a pet bunny (who's really Persephoni, her Guardian).
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Chelsea sets up a prank for Peter to give Whitney a special perfume. Whitney is allergic to said substance, but it affects her far worse than expected and she ends up going to the hospital. (See My Fist Forgives You for the aftermath.)
- Karma Houdini: Played with for Chelsea; early on, she gets away with doing things to Peter. Her Jerkass nature eventually catches up with her.
- Laser-Guided Karma: While doing a group project, Tracy tried to screw Peter out of the grade by claiming that he didn't do anything in the group (in actuality, he did all the research). She succeeded, but Tracy got an "F" because Peter (seemingly) made up all the research he did for it.
- Pet the Dog: Chelsea seems to be...intrigued by Peter's clay flowers. In fact, this was inspired by the Real Life version of Chelsea.
- Shout-Out: This strip and the next recreate a scene from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, right down to some of the dialogue.
- Stalker with a Crush: Chelsea, who watched and kept notes of Peter's habits on several occasions and went into a rage when he showed interest in another girl.
- Tuckerization: Almost everyone in the comic in Jon's past has their real names used. The only notable aversion of this trope is with Jon's own avatar, Peter.
