The Marijuana Show's Next Finalist: A Stoner Comic Book Author
Artist and standup comic Jeffrey Peterson advanced to the next round in the online reality series on the strength of his comic "Super Stoners."
By Will Yakowicz Staff writer, Inc. @WillYakowicz
A few of the entrepreneurs featured on the seventh episode of "The Marijuana Show" needed a little more time to fully bake their ideas.
Would you patronize a cannabis-friendly supper club in a secret location or practice marijuana-inspired yoga (the instructional video comes with a THC vaporizer)? The judges on the seventh episode of "The Marijuana Show," a Shark Tank-like reality web series filmed in Denver, predicted consumers' answer would be no, and rejected the entrepreneurs who pitched those ventures.
The newest installment features a handful of potrepreneurs who didn't make the cut. So which savvy business owner will join a group of nine others to be mentored by industry experts at Bud Camp? (The show doesn't actually include those juicy and harsh Donald Trump-like "You're fired!" scenes, but the creators specified via email which contestants did and and didn't advance.)
The contestant chosen to move on was probably the show's most stereotypical marijuana-user-with-an-idea: Jeffrey Peterson, who calls himself the "420 Comic" and holds standup gigs in Las Vegas, successful pitched a cannabis-based comic book. We're not talking about an edible comic book, or a comic book that comes with weed, we're talking about a comic book rolled tight with weed jokes.
The main characters in Peterson's "Super Stoners" are Sheepman, also known as The Wool Wonder, and his sidekick Weedboy. Together, they are called "The Dank Duo." The villains are a motley crew of characters with names like Bastard Santa, Hank Hemp, and Weed Wizard. "This super group is hemp bent on fighting evil," the comic's cover reads.
Peterson, said he has done standup with Cheech and Chong and was an animator for TV cartoons like My Little Pony tales and Batman: The Animated Series. "The time has come to infuse cannabis with comic books," he tells the judges during his pitch. "Imagine being on the ground floor of Marvel Comics. I met Stan Lee, [while] dressed as Sheepman, he loved it."
Although the artwork, dialogue, and plot lines are a bit cut-rate, who knows what the kids will like, right? It wasn't depicted in the show, but an anonymous investor gave Peterson $25,000 for a 10 percent equity stake.
The episode's best pitch, though, was by Jane West, a well-established entrepreneur in the industry, for her women's marijuana networking group Women Grow. "Women Grow connects, educates, and empowers the next generation of females in the cannabis industry," she said. "It seems to be a male-dominated field. I don't want stereotypes of cannabis use to prevent professional women from entering the market at exactly the right time they should."
West, who was a corporate event planner until she was featured in a primetime news show on TV smoking marijuana, started her network in Denver and has since expanded to 12 other cities, including Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Anchorage. Immediately after losing her corporate job, West started another company, Edible Events, which hosts bring-your-own-cannabis events in Denver.
According to the show's creators, West would have been selected, but, curiously, she had a scheduling conflict. The lesson for this episode? Sometimes success in entrepreneurship is about being at the right place at the right time.
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About the creators of "The Marijuana Show":
The Marijuana Show Co-Founders, Creators and Producers Wendy Robbins and Karen Paull created The Marijuana Show in the summer of 2014. The show's concept was created initially as a means to help entrepreneurs in the cannabis industry create a blueprint to success and investment. They were looking for the next marijuana millionaire.
The show skyrocketed into a critically acclaimed television show with over 7 million views and the National press reached 250 million. In the 3 seasons over 20 million in funding was offered to contestants.
Wendy and Karen, the hosts and mentors are highly successful and recently named in the top 50 most important Women in the Cannabis Industry.