R. K. Milholland
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Randal Keith Milholland, better known as R. K. Milholland is the author of several webcomics: Something Positive, New Gold Dreams, and most recently Midnight Macabre.
[edit] History
Raised in Bedford, Texas, he attended Harwood Junior High and Trinity High School in neighboring Euless, Texas. During high school he won several statewide awards for his editorial cartoons. He went on to enroll in the art department at the University of North Texas where he spent four years.
Milholland moved to Boston in the spring of 1999. He worked odd jobs, including stints at a dot com startup, scientific non-profit, medical billing and medical research companies. During this time he started the Something Positive webcomic, in response to a criticism from his friend, voice actress Clarine Harp, that he should "do something positive" with his life. The protagonist, Davan, is loosely based on himself and the stories are often inspired by real life experiences. Like Davan, he has one sister and is not married. Incidentally, Harp found herself in the comic as well in the form of the explosive Aubrey Chorde.
In June of 2004, faced with increasing complaints about his lateness in updating the comic, Milholland challenged his readership to donate enough money to pay for a year of his salary, so that he could quit his job and become a full-time cartoonist. To his surprise, this amount was reached and surpassed in less than a month, making Milholland one of the successful pioneers of micropatronage. Since then, his webcomic has expanded into many realms of merchandising.
He still lives in Boston and travels the con circuit frequently. If you bring a blank Munchkin card to him, he'll improvise a new character for you. He also sometimes performs in community theater in the area, especially children's theater.
[edit] Trivia
In June 2003 Milholland was stranded overnight at the airport in Seattle. Unprepared and bored, he asked a friend to mention his predicament on his webcomic and ask for someone to come hang out with him. Within 20 minutes of the post someone found him at the airport and whisked him away from certain boredom. (Many others appeared before the post was removed an hour later.) This was when it became clear that celebrity was coming.
On June 23, 2005, Milholland posted that he would be getting a new phone number in a few days, and had posted his phone number somewhere "fairly obvious." It was in the page title. [1] Two days later, he announced, in a comment on the day's comic, that "everyone's been so polite when they call...and no I'm not complaining." [2]
On October 30, 2005, Milholland was inducted as an honorary member of the Alpha Theta coed fraternity at Dartmouth College.
