OVERCOMPENSATING: The Journal Comic With a Seething Disdain for Reality.
— Page Title
Hey. My name is Jeffrey Rowland and I am an actual dude. I used to live in Oklahoma but now I live in Northampton, Massachusetts. I got problems like everybody does. I got a few stories to tell you.
Overcompensating
Is the sometimes fiction other times auto-bio web-comic by Jeffrey Rowland. Rowland is also the creator of other web comics
When I Grow Up and
Wigu Adventures as well as the founder of
TopatoCo
, a t-shirt company specializing in selling web-comic based merchandise.
The strips feature a collection of characters, some fictitious, some based on people Rowland knows in real life (quite a few are real web-comic creators), with the main character being an
Author Avatar. The subject matter of a strip generally falls into the below subjects:
- What happened last night?
- A humorous take on whatever is in the news now.
- Some horrible fad that can't possibly be real, but is.
- Some horrible reality that all humans have to face despite the fact that it's so soul-crushingly horrible it's a wonder we all get out of bed each morning.
If you came here for the
other type of overcompensating, the page you want is
Compensating for Something.
This comic provides examples of:
- Alt Text
- Anthropomorphic Personification The G0D of Internet.
- Art Evolution In the comic itself, also can be compared to When I Grow Up to REALLY see how far Rowland has progressed.
- Author Avatar
- Author Tract: Frequently, and without shame.
- Guest Strip
- God Makes frequent appearances as well as his son.
- God Is Evil Sort of, God and Jesus can be dicks at times. Also they both live in a trailer park for some reason.
- Grotesque Cute - Butt-cats!!

- Hollywood Hacking - Weedmaster P attempts to determine what flight Jeffrey is on in this strip
. Possibly played straight, given what Weedmaster P is wearing and part of what he's saying. Possibly averted given that some of what he's saying are actual computer terms including looking for a backdoor. Subverted when Baby finds a note in the toilet with the flight info. - It Got Worse - This strip
, done on purpose with hilarious horrible results. - Libation for the Dead - Okay, so not a straight example, but there is a Jim Beam-drinking, undead cat from Hell.
- Life Embellished
- Mundane Fantastic - Topato, the flying, super-strong, made-out of poison, potatoes occasionally shows up from his home dimension to yell at Jeffrey.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero - Part of reality had to be deleted to prevent ALL of reality collapsing. Happens in a cross-over with Wigu Adventures.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot - Robot Monkey Pirate Zombie Mummy Ninja Hobo Cowboy, "the greatest cartoon character in the history of Earth."
- Ramp Jump
- Refuge in Audacity
- Run For The Border - Choices are in short supply with almost any situation involving five gallons of ticks
. - Strawman Political: Hoo boy.
- Take That The site frequently takes shots at society and politics, however this
comic attacks neither but still hits Kid Rock, his fans, and Tim Buckley pretty hard.- Andrew Hussie's brief appearance lightly mocked his workaholicness and his tendency for animation that doesn't particularly add anything to a panel
- With Friends Like These - Weedmaster P.