Roland began working in comics professionally as a freelance writer in 1989. As one of his first projects, he co-created and wrote a successful series that earned critical acclaim and was optioned by Hollywood. He then began to package and agent works by creators local to him. Roland worked with a handful of small publishers as both writer and packager. This led growing comic publisher Malibu Comics to offer him a staff position as editor. A few years later, Malibu Comics had grown to the fourth largest publisher in the U.S. and they were purchased by comic giant Marvel Comics. As a result of the purchase, Roland was promoted to senior editor and eventually managing editor, positions he held until the comic collapse in the late 90s and Marvel fired over 400 employees. Roland took his experience and began Silverline, a small press company that published thirteen books through 2000. When Roland took up teaching, he returned to freelance writing and running Silverline as a packager.

While at Malibu, Roland conceived and began an intern program that brought in local college students. These students were paid minimum wage and began the internship doing very menial tasks (filing, copying, phone calls, etc.). However, the internship was designed to help train the students to be editors, many of whom successfully made the move into editorial during Roland’s tenure there. Roland is anxious to take that experience and use it to benefit Full Sail and the creative writing students here.

Roland has written dozens of comics, including titles such as Cat & Mouse, Planet of the Apes, Miss Fury, Lita Ford, Rocket Ranger, and others.