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.

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.

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.

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.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is a daily humor strip that’s as quick with a physics gag as it is with a dirty joke. Creator Zach Weiner pairs insights into the human condition with irreverent pokes at science, religion, relationships, and not-so-ordinary family life. SMBC is one of those comics that walk the razor-thin line between funny and terribly wrong without quite toppling over the edge. You can expect to see plenty of macabre humor and the highest brow dick jokes you’re sure to see on the Internet.

In addition to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, Weiner co-writes and co-stars in the online sketch show SMBC Theater, collaborates on the webcomic Snowflakes, and wrote the superhero parody graphic novel Captain Stupendous. The first SMBC print collection Save Yourself, Mammal! is available now. Weiner spoke to us via email about how studying science improved his humor writing, why graphs are funny, and what he would write if he worked for DC.

This past November, xkcd creator Randall Munroe posted a comic explaining that a family member had become ill. Although a handful of his comics since then have alluded to illness – the frustration of a sick person being told they just need a positive attitude, the promise science holds as a weapon against disease – he has not focused much of his comic on that aspect of his life.

Last week, Munroe decided to share precisely what he has been dealing with these past eight months. His fiancée was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer and she is still undergoing treatment. Munroe shared this in part to explain why he has missed some comic deadlines – although I’m sure his fans, like everyone here, care far more about Munroe and his fiancée’s physical and emotional health.  But Munroe also announced that he is interested in making comics about cancer science, a topic he has obviously learned a great deal about in the last year.

Faith Erin Hicks is a webcomics veteran, the creator behind Demonology 101 and Ice. She’s also written and drawn two graphic novels, Zombies Calling and The War of Ellsmere (both published by Slave Labor Graphics), and you may recognize her work from her short comic “Wolverine Goes Grocery Shopping.” Last year, she launched The Adventures of Superhero Girl (published in print as Just the Usual Superpowers for trademark reasons), an online comic about a fledgling, 20-something superhero who hasn’t quite gotten the hang of the whole crime-fighting gig.

Superhero Girl defends the city of Halifax, battling ninjas, criminals, and creatures from space (with varying degrees of success). But she struggles to step out from the shadow of her famous superhero brother, keeps forgetting to take off her mask, and realizes that crime-fighting doesn’t pay (at least not financially). She’s a person who has found her life’s passion, but hasn’t quite found her place in the world. Hicks sat down with us to explain the inspiration behind Superhero Girl, why superheroes shouldn’t wear high heels, and why more female characters won’t save Marvel and DC.