Snow job

Kijiji ad launches new career for Moncton man

After mainstream media across Canada and beyond reported on the comedic scribblings of a previously unknown office worker from Moncton late last year, Gene Fowler fired up his laptop and began searching for one Weh-Ming Cho.

“I found him like millions of others did, through his ad on the kijiji online classified service,” says the owner of the Miramichi, N.B.-based animation studio, Loogaroo. “Man, he was funny!”

Indeed, Cho’s 800-word screed, offering a snow blower for sale, has garnered more than 400,000 hits (the second-highest in kijiji history), and proposals for both work and marriage.

“This isn’t some entry level snow blower that is just gonna move the snow two feet away,” the gifted amateur wrote. “This is an 11 HP Briggs and Stratton machine of snow doom that will cut a 29-inch path of pure ecstasy. And it’s only four years old. I dare you to find a harder working four-year-old. My niece is five and she gets tired and cranky after just a few minutes of shoveling.”

Thanks to this creative brio, he and Fowler are now collaborating on an animated web series called “Roaches.” Cho describes the project with typical jocularity: “It’s about the adventures of three anthropomorphic joints. They say you should write about what you know . . . I’ve been anthropomorphizing objects since I was a kid. And yes, I’m trying to see how many times I can use the word anthropomorphic.”

Fowler says the project is still in its early stages: “Weh-Ming is still writing drafts of the script, and I’m still trying to figure out what the characters are going to look like.”

As for the future of their professional bromance, he reports, “We’ll see this project through first. If we want to continue with something different, we will . . . It’s all for fun right now.”

In fact, Cho hasn’t let overnight success go to his head. “I have no illusions that I’m going to write the Great Canadian Novel, mainly because I find so many of the books that get that label to be incredibly depressing,” he says. “But I hope I’ve made the best possible use of my 15 minutes of fame.”

By Alec Bruce