THE OATMEAL's Matthew Inman Interview

There are some NSFW images and words linked below. Above: a recent OATMEAL cartoon.

Matthew Inman is best known as the cartoonist who draws THE OATMEAL. OATMEAL is described as "one of the Web's top cartoons" in this Seattle News Weekly profile by Abe Aboraya.

He isn't a waiter/cartoonist or a barista/cartoonist or a housepainter/cartoonist. He's not even a freelance computer geek/cartoonist. He stopped doing that work a year ago. Now, at 28, he draws comics, posts them to his website, sells merch, and turns a serious profit.

This is good news, and then the writer writes at length about Mr. Inman's cartoons. Sounds like Mr. Aboraya is a fan.

Now, what's a serious profit?

Well, here it is -- and this whole paragraph is just unbelievable:

Inman didn't know how much he was making until a few weeks ago, when he sat down and did some tallying for the Weekly. He estimates his take-home pay for 2010 will be just over a half-million dollars.

Uh .... if I was making that kind of money, I would know. It's hard to believe that a fellow as savvy as Mr. Inman appears to be has no idea that a half a million will be in his pocket this year.