| Illwillpress | |
 | |
| Real Name: | Jonathan Ian Mathers |
|---|---|
| Birthdate: | April 5, 1976 |
| Profile: | Illwillpress's profile |
| Aura: | Blank Slate |
| Level: | Level 2 |
 
| |
| Whistle: | 
|
| Normal | |
| Blam/Protect Rank: | 
|
| Civilian | |
Jonathan Mathers of New York is the creator of Neurotically Yours, which has a major Collection on Newgrounds. This collection is subdivided into Foamy's Rant or Foamy Fanmail cartoons. He is considered a fairly controversial figure 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 flashes varies and at least two have received Turd Of The Week (e.g. the cartoon Suggestion Box, which has now been deleted, and : KoShEr Crackers :, also deleted, but since reuploaded without the award). Despite most of his movies being deleted, he still has over 160 award-winning movies as of May 2021.
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.
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 March 2010: Illwillpress has won over 100 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 Hammers & Floodlights with 4.39, as judged by about 4,000 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, including "Hammers & Floodlights", 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 have been removed there in order to stay monetised. He is currently in the process of reuploading every episode on Newgrounds, at first reuploading the maximum of two per day, but has since slowed down to one every three days.
Jonathan continues to make and upload Neurotically Yours episodes to both Youtube and Newgrounds.
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 flash talent than other authors who have similar ratings. They have been described as construction-line flashes, every flash made very much the same way, with very little attempt to animate in any clever or visually appealing way.
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.