Narbonic is a webcomic

Webcomic

Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or often in self-published books....

 written and drawn by Shaenon K. Garrity

Shaenon K. Garrity

Shaenon K. Garrity is a webcomics writer and artist, best known as the creator of Narbonic. She is one of the most prominent cartoonists in the Modern Tales network of commercial webcomic sites, and became the site's editor on August 1, 2006...

. The storylines center on the misadventures of the staff of Narbonic Labs, which is the domain of mad scientist

Mad scientist

A mad scientist is a stock character of popular fiction, specifically science fiction. The mad scientist may be villainous or antagonistic, benign or neutral, and whether insane, eccentric, or simply bumbling, mad scientists often work with fictional technology in order to forward their schemes, if...

 Helen Narbon. The strip started on July 31, 2000 and finished on December 31, 2006. On January 1, 2007, Garrity launched the "Director's Cut", an "annotated replay" of Narbonic. Narbonic became part of the subscription-based Modern Tales

Modern Tales

Modern Tales is a webcomics site launched on March 2, 2002 by Joey Manley, the Modern Tales publisher, and approximately 30 professional cartoonists, such as Dorothy Gambrell, author of the popular webcomic Cat and Girl and James Kochalka, the award-winning creator of Fancy Froglin...

 website for several years but moved in July 2006 to Webcomics Nation

Webcomics Nation

Webcomics Nation is a webcomic hosting and automation service launched on July 29, 2005 by Joey Manley, publisher of the subscription webcomic site Modern Tales. It is a service designed for online cartoonists. Webcomics Nation is not a spinoff of Modern Tales like Graphic Smash, serializer, and...

 where it is back to being a free-to-read webcomic.