Jeffrey Rowland (webcomics)

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Jeffrey Rowland (born May 22, 1974) is the author and artist responsible for Wigu and Overcompensating, two popular webcomics. Originally from Locust Grove, Oklahoma, Rowland now lives in Easthampton, Massachusetts where he continues to work on the two projects, while running TopatoCo, a company he uses to sell merchandise based on his comics.

Jeffrey Rowland's comics are part of the Dumbrella network, along with comics such as Diesel Sweeties and Scary Go Round. Rowland can be considered one of the small number of professional webcartoonists, as running Overcompensating and Wigu, in addition to his merchandise company TopatoCo, is his full time job and source of income.

1 Comics
2 Snakes on a plane
3 Cultural Phenomena and Word Coinage
4 External links
- 4.1 Interviews

[edit] Comics

Rowland started his webcomics career on June 14, 1999 with the webcomic When I Grow Up, a comic about four friends living in an apartment building in the fictional town of Shallow Brook, Oklahoma. The main characters were Neal, a young African-American scientist working for the U.S. government; Roger, an unemployed slacker; Zoe, a selfish, bitter newscaster; and Gina, a college student and part-time employee of a video store. When I Grow Up was hosted by Keenspot for some time, but eventually Rowland moved it to its own webserver.

In January 2002, When I Grow Up ended, and on July 1, 2002, his new comic, Wigu began. Wigu was about the adventures of a young boy named Wigu, his dysfunctional family, and Topato Potato and Sheriff Pony, a couple of magical cartoon characters from another dimension. Rowland planned to end Wigu in December 2004, but in early 2005 changed his mind and continued to work on the comic.

On September 19, 2004, Rowland began another comic, Overcompensating, a kind of journal/daily blog comic about his life. Overcompensating, though clearly fictitious, does appear to have some reality in it. Caricatures of real life people such as Richard Stevens and John Allison make appearances, while other characters, such as Weedmaster P, presumably do not exist. In April 2005, Rowland predicted and then 'faked' his death by having Weedmaster P update the comic, posting that Jeffrey Rowland had died.

For a time, Rowland announced that Wigu was to become a primarily print-based format, to be published monthly and distributed via the Internet and some comics shops. The first issue, Case of the Missile Crisis, went into presale on March 14, 2006. Wigu went back into its regular serial format on November 22, 2006.

[edit] Snakes on a plane

Though not its founder, Jeffrey Rowland has been strongly linked with the Snakes on a plane internet phenomenon, partly because of this comic and one of his T-shirts, which, though unofficial, has been worn in promotion of the film. At the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con he appeared on a panel with Samuel L. Jackson discussing the film. Rowland attended the film's premiere and appears in a featurette on its DVD release.

[edit] Cultural Phenomena and Word Coinage

In addition for helping to popularize "Snakes on a Plane," Jeffrey Rowland is also responsible for many memes involving catch phrases, such as "so hard" (used to amplify expressions, such as "I win so hard") and "I am made of poison." in August of 2005 Jeffrey Rowland attempted to popularize the word "webcest", coined by himself [1], particularly (and unsuccessfully) on Wikipedia. (However, most of his coined words may be found in Urban Dictionary.) Among other terms coined by Jeffrey Rowland (which also may be found in Urban Dictionary) are "Awesomelope," "Eternify," "Intoxihol," and "Awesinine."