| Illwillpress | |
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| Real Name: | Jonathan Ian Mathers |
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| Birthdate: | April 5, 1976 |
| Profile: | Illwillpress's profile |
| Aura: | Blank Slate |
| Level: | Level 2 |
 
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| Normal | |
| Blam/Protect Rank: | 
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| Civilian | |
Jonathan Mathers, often abbreviated as J.i.M, and alternatively referred by his online handle illwillpress, is a New York-based animator and comic artist. He is the creator of Neurotically Yours, a long-running web-series with a major Collection on Newgrounds. This collection is subdivided into Foamy's Rant or Foamy Fanmail cartoons.
He is considered an extremely controversial figure to the community due to the subjects of his submissions- social commentary about real world figures and events, with the Foamy's Rant series in particular being heavily criticized.
Despite his controversial nature, Illwillpress's submissions are mostly highly rated and continue to win many awards. However, the popularity of his movies varies and at least two have received Turd Of The Week (e.g. the deleted cartoons Suggestion Box, and : KoShEr Crackers :). Despite most of his movies being deleted, he still has almost 200 award-winning movies as of September 2023.
Style[]
Illwillpress's animations share a common style. They often take place in front of a single drawn scene, while characters stand in the foreground and make movements while they talk. The focus of these movies is the dialogues and monologues that characters have, which are either about contemporary topics such as immigration and the music industry, or conflicts between the characters. Movies usually last only a minute or two and are typically released once every 2 weeks.
In 2011, after the episode "Reboot Button", the show went through a major revamp, and the art style changed as a result. The characters were redrawn, looking much smoother. However, the form and writing style of each episode stayed consistent with the episodes prior.
In 2017, the show, again, went through an art style revamp. This time, Jonathan went for a "comic style" version of the characters, where they looked more like his comic book stylings of them. Again, the writing style and form of each episode were similar to those made before.
An example of the newest revamped "comic style" animation (taken from "Triggers & Safe Spaces")
Success[]
As of August 2023: Illwillpress has won over 200 awards, a significant achievement for any author, especially a single author who is not part of a crew. The majority of his submissions score over 4 and have thousands of views. Four of his movies have over a million views and the current top score is Nuts to You with 4.54/5, as judged by about 1,300 votes. However, most of his awards are relatively minor daily awards. His solitary major award Weekly Users' Choice Award was for A Postal Event, one of his earliest submissions.
On March 2016, most of his videos were deleted from his Newgrounds page, significantly decreasing the number of awards won to 50. While most of the episodes can be found on his YouTube page, a lot of them were later removed there in order to stay monetized. He has since re-uploaded seasons 1-5 of the original series to Newgrounds
Jonathan continues to create and upload new Neurotically Yours episodes to various platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok, though he stopped uploading to Newgrounds in Sep 2023.
Criticism[]
Criticism for movies such as "Foamy's Rant" include a lack of animation and mundane subject matter.
Illwillpress has been criticized for not being funny, for using basic motion tweens and the same symbols over and over again, for only using one traced scene in his movies, and generally for putting far less effort into his work or having far less animation talent than other authors who have similar ratings. They have been described as construction-line flashes, every movie made very much the same way, with very little attempt to animate in any clever or visually appealing way. Another critics point out that Germaine, one of the main protagonists alongside Foamy, has been over-sexualized over the years and that she only works out as an sex appeal on some episodes.
He has also been criticized for not partaking in the Newgrounds community at all and for advertising more than other artists. His defenders think he is very funny, though the content and topics depicted in episodes are often little more than rants of day-to-day activities and situations.
Hurricane and Illegal Immigrant Specials[]
Both "Special" rants feature a picture of Foamy "live via payphone" and no other elements of animation
Illwillpress made two "specials" in 2005 and 2006 respectively, which consisted of three minute long rants set to a single screen, Hurricane Special, and iLLegal Immigrant Special. Both were criticized for not including any animation, while the latter special, which responds to illegal immigration in California and called Mexican people as "burrito suckers" was also criticized for racist remarks and was deleted from Newgrounds three days after its release with a final score of 1.44/5, while the former was deleted in 2016 along with most of the episodes. [1]
HD reupload controversy.[]
An image J.i.M posts on most of his re-uploads, which shows how he uses the feature.
In 2020, Illwillpress faced consistent backlash for reuploading HD video versions of older Neurotically Yours episodes twice a day (which were previously deleted in 2016). These episodes kept consistently winning Daily Features. He has since opted out of awards for these episodes as soon as the option became available in September 2020, as well as switching over to one reupload per day, later three reuploads per week.
Neurotically Yours 'Bits'[]
Neurotically Yours 'Bits' uses simplified visuals and AI-generated backgrounds.
In August 2023, Illwillpress started uploading a new series to Newgrounds titled "Neurotically Yours 'Bits'". These 'bits' are significantly shorter than previous episodes (generally lasting around 10 seconds each), used simpler visuals, and were uploaded weekly. Movies in the 'Bits' series score significantly lower than their full-sized counterparts, and are often criticized for having less effort than the original series.
Car, the 6th bit, faced significant backlash. Although it initially won a daily feature, Car's score quickly plummeted to around 1.67/5 stars due to both the short length of the cartoon (with 17 seconds of the film's 23 second runtime being dedicated to advertising illwillpress's merchandise), and the use of an AI generated background.
Many users argue that Car, and by extension all of the Neurotically Yours "Bits" animations should be disqualified from receiving any awards, as the series uses AI-generated artwork to create backgrounds.