How to not make shitty comics when you mean to

I'm looking at the pages I'm drawing for Benny Bunny On Wheels and I notice that I get so caught up in what I'm drawing that I forget that it's supposed to be in my quick, bad-art style. A page should take no longer than three hours, but the last couple have taken upwards of six. I keep forgetting that although this comic book is supposed to be silly, fun, and ridiculous, it's not supposed to be good!

Early '08 accomplishments

So I guess things are starting to ramp up.

The rating just came out and Ed & Red's Night Party is back up up at #1 in its timeslot with men and - for the first time in the 14 year history of the show - with women as well. I'm not saying that's because of my contribution, but I'll just privately believe that's the case.

The video of my rap performance on the show is up to 90,000+ views on YouTube, and was recently featured as the video of the day.

I'm looking very forward to a packed travel itinerary over the next few months, and I just found out that I am adding Spring Break in Panama City, Florida to my list of destinations.

And Benny Bunny On Wheels is turning out awesome.

Many thanks to all of my fans and supporters. This is all a lot of fun!

Benny Bunny On Wheels production blog

I have been sitting at my desk all day, save for an hour that I went out to run some errands. Even when I'm only going up to the corner to get some lunch and pick up a couple of things from Shopper's Drug Mart, I still need to put on a tie. I was thinking that I was going to go to the gym tonight but I'm too in the groove to stop. I've been twice this week already, so I'll be OK to go tomorrow and Thursday.

I had other work that I should have been doing today, and I've chipped away at it in momentary spurts, but basically I woke up today and got started on inking a page and couldn't stop. And then started on the next page and couldn't stop. I am starting to put too much effort into the drawing, this book is supposed to be in my 'bad art' style.

The next couple of pages after this one are going to be a fun challenge because I'm going back to ones I have not laid out. As I've said before, I want this book to have the feel that it was made up as I went along so I have only laid out key, complicated sequences. I don't even know what the page count is going to be on this book, that will reveal itself to me.

I remember an interview with Chris Ware I once read in which he was talking about how when he draws comics pages, he turns off radios and TVs, and does his best to block out all stimuli so that the drawings are purely what's in his head. I go the other way. I've got music playing, movies on the go, and frequent breaks to play Wii Tennis. I want all of that stimuli to find it's way into the work. My whole thing is to take the world around me as I see it, and twist & mangle it and that's what the work is made out of.

As the world awaits B.B.O.W.

It's crazy how the streets are fiending for this new comic book. I think I've already blogged about how as soon as I started feeling like I had a story I needed to tell in the comic book form, people started to stop me in the streets to ask when I was going to put a new comic book out. I even go into the Silver Snail and the clerk is telling me that people come in and ask them when a new Sean Ward book is coming out. Today I went to the gym and as I'm opening a locker, a voice behind me asks if I'm still making comics. I turn around and it's some guy who used to buy comics on the street from me. He recognized me, even though he hasn't seen me in years and hasn't followed my exploits in other media. We chatted a bit and I gave him the run-down of what I've been up to. And with any luck, I got him hype for Benny Bunny On Wheels. Then when I got home, I found a Facebook add from a girl who used to be one of my biggest supporters all through when I was putting out new comics, but who also hasn't been around since then. And now she's asking me about it. This goes on constantly, almost daily. It would almost be eerie if it wasn't so cool!

It's funny, the weird cycles that things go in. I haven't made a new comic book in over two years because of how burned out I was on the whole thing. I grew to dislike the qualities that trying to compete in the comic book scene was bringing out of me. But now, the more I get back into putting out a new comic book, the more I feel like the real me is flourishing for the first time in ages. I think that's because I am reconnecting with the spirit in which I was creating comics when I first started doing it seriously. In the beginning, I wasn't concerned about getting mentioned on the comics websites. I didn't care about attending the conventions. I was just making something I thought was cool and trying to show it to people. And that's how I feel now about this new one. For a long time, my output was too much about trying to prove something. That's when the motivation is coming from an egocentric place. And nothing that comes from an egocentric place ever works out well in the long run.

Finished the Benny Bunny script

Today I finished the Benny Bunny script. I actually finished it last night, but formatted it and edited it today. It feels like a milestone. This is going to be the first comic book work that I have released since November of 2005.

I've already got nine pages drawn, that's how I started the thing. It was going to be in the same style as my last Benny Bunny book, how I just made it up as I went along with no underdrawing or pre-planning of any kind. It started like that, but then I got so into the story that I wanted to present it in a slightly more polished form. By that point I was nine pages in on the first go, so I re-drew those pages. Then I needed to finish the story so I put those pages away and started on a real script. And that's all the pre-planning that's going into this thing. The page layouts are all in my head. The under-drawing is very light, and even then only for figures.

I am very excited to get this story out. It's going to have "based on several true stories" under the title on the inside of the cover. The comic book scene in Toronto is bogged down by a strange triangle of political B.S. This comic book is based on many such things I've seen go on in this city between stores, events, and people.

Now that the script is finished, I can get back to the fun job: finish drawing the pages. I'm aiming to release this thing in April so I'd better get motoring.

A messy adventure in time for a meeting

A few days ago, I had a meeting at one of the cable networks. I took the subway out to their offices, way out in the eastern-most part of the city. I arrived to the destination station (in a mall) with 40 minutes before I had to be at the meeting so I had some time to kill. I got a bagel and a coffee, and decided that instead of getting on a bus to go maybe two stops, I would just walk across the bridge over the highway.

I exited the mall through the north-east exit and walked across the parking lot. By the time I ran out of parking lot, I had a small patch of grass to cross to get to the sidewalk. I took a step onto the grass. With my second step, my feet flew out from under me and I landed on my ass. It was a mild day and the grass was wet and slick from the melting snow so I slid down a little hill like a water slide and landed in a puddle at the bottom, spilling my coffee all over myself - and my favorite t-shirt - as I went. I climbed up out of the puddle with my entire right side covered in mud, and my pants and shoes soaking wet.

I crossed the bridge, arrived to the building, and got an interesting look from the security guard who let me through. I checked in at the front desk and asked to use the restroom to clean myself up before my meeting as "I took a terrible tumble." The receptionist, bless her, stood up with concern and made sure I was OK. I explained that it was more funny than anything else, and she gave me the key to the restroom where I scraped the mud and grass off of my coat and pants as best I could. Actually cleaning myself would prove impossible. I got the mud off and dried myself as best as I could, and then checked in for my meeting. When the TV executive I was meeting with arrived, she asked how I was doing. I told her to take a look at me to see how I was doing.

The happy news is that my favorite t-shirt, the retro-looking Spider-Man one with "Amazing" written in Japanese, survived. the coffee came out after soaking it in a sink full of hot water and dish soap.

What Am I Still Doing Up?

It's ten to six in the morning, and I am still up. I am waiting to see if this is going to be an all-nighter, or if I am going to crash around dawn. I am not asleep because I got the fever several hours ago and I have been having a creative explosion that I just sat down to take a break from by playing my piano, and now typing in this. The new comic book is shaping up to be this huge epic, I just hope that it doesn't get too huge. I was aiming for it to be about 48 pages, but it looks like it could go as high as 64, or somewhere in between. The way I'm creating this one, it will just reveal itself on it's own damn time.

Are there any really old-school hardcore fans out there who remember Atomic Man? I have not done anything with him in ages and ages. He's going to be in the new book.

This creative burst is coming as part of some manic episode. Something happened to me last Thursday that sent me crashing into a really deep... I don't want to say depression, but I was definitely in a bad place emotionally. That lasted for four days until yesterday, when I started getting back to work after taking it easy since the last TV tapings.

It's a good time for ideas right this second, and I guess I just don't want to go to bed for fear of missing one.

Back in the TV studio

I have been meaning to get on here and update this bitch all week. But every day has been chaos from early in the morning until so late that it's early the next morning. We are taping new Ed & Red episodes all weekend, and the week was spent fixing up the set and preparing the studio. We did a lot to the set to bring back the some of the feel of the show from when it was a cable phenomenon. There have been massive personnel changes, and the vibe on set has a dramatically different feel. The most obvious thing was that everything went really smoothly and the biggest problem we had was that we didn't have enough pizza for everyone at the meal break. We've got some new ladies on the show that I just adore, and they add a vital freshness to the proceedings. It is so amazing to have Human Kebab on the show with me now, he's amazing on the turntables. Tomorrow our stylist, Celline, is bringing me a new 3-piece suit to wear. This whole week has been like putting on the play in high school only way more fun, at a way larger scale, and the pay is a lot better. Every so often my mind pops out of what is happening and I stop and think "Wow, this is what I get to do for a living!" This is amazing.

Production Meeting Tomorrow

I have to get up earlier than I usually do tomorrow. I have to be at a production meeting at noon. I usually don't get up until noon. But we're going to be figuring out the next batch of episodes we're taping in December. We haven't taped any new episodes since last spring, I am so excited. I get excited for the tapings every time, but now that I'm in the cast it's even more so. We're going to have a whole bunch of new people, it's going to be amazing. I can't wait to start playing scenes with Brandy.

I was on the subway yesterday and I saw one of the most disturbing things I'd ever seen. It was one of those giant billboards, advertising a t-shirt for girls to wear that announces that the wearer of the t-shirt is on Alesse. Geez, why don't we just cut the shit: when the girls enter 10th grade, we hand them a shirt that says "I'm ready to fuck!" People who work in the media can be so irresponsible.

Later That Night... (HHK)

New coat!


Hip Hop Karaoke. What a great night out. I went on three times tonight and rocked it each one. There's a bunch of people that go up in there every month and give everything they've got and make it hot: Gersh, Rhino, Kagen, Sherry, V, RaSoul, SplatterMonkey & Sandra, the Wu-Tang boys. And all of the lovely ladies that come out dressed to the nines.



I spent all week rehearsing two songs: COME CLEAN by Jeru the Damaja, and GOLD DIGGER by Kanye West. Both of my appearances were in rapid succession so at the end of the night, several drinks in and shouting along to everything, I was dismayed at my having no further songs in the queue. As the night began to circle in for a landing, I asked Dalia if I might rock one more song. She said she could put me on at the end if I could pick one right away. So it was to be THE HUMPTY DANCE, and it was hot.

Click right here to check out my HHK photo album.

Working on stuff

Today I thought I would get up at 10 AM, but I just got up to see that it was 1 PM. Whatever, I was only on four hours' sleep the previous night so I was catching up. The previous night, I stayed up all night to finish a big editing job that I just wanted out the door. And then in the morning I had to get up early to let a guy in to fix the furnace. Either one of those would be fine on their own, but in combination they killed me. I still got to the gym yesterday, but the rest of the day was pretty much a haze of nodding off.

Work progresses on the new comic book, BENNY BUNNY ON WHEELS. It's funny how after not putting a comic book out for two years, there are still a lot of people who are more excited about the idea of me doing another one of those than anything else I've got on the go with TV or music.

I am about half-way through Stephen Colbert's I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU). It's hilarious. I love that guy. I have a right proper belly laugh at least once during every single episode of his show.

OK, enough of this. I've got plenty of work to do!!

Early Wednesday

I just looked at my last post. That was a week ago? It feels like a couple of days ago!! I remember typing it, and... wow, a week. Time is whipping past here. Things are getting heavy at work, but it looks like it's all going to settle. Shit, all I want to do is make some kick-ass shows!

And what's this mysterious thing I'm starting to pick at? New comic book?? What??

Quieteze, the new wonder drug

You know there's all those drugs to make kids calm and well-behaved? Well how about a prescription drug for your baby to keep it from crying?

Is your infant crying more than fifteen minutes a day? Perhaps Junior is suffering from Infant Excess Dissatisfaction Syndrome. Quieteze is clinically proven to reduce outbursts by up to 80%. Side-effects may include stunted growth, brain damage, or digestion failure. Not tested on children under 3 weeks. Talk to your doctor.

A thought on the guy from Iran's visit

Remember a couple of weeks ago, when the president of Iran paid a visit to New York? Remember all of those idiots on the news booing him and trying to make his visit shitty? I can't help but wonder if, since this is a guy who (in theory) may be thinking about shooting the place up with nuclear weapons, it might have been a better idea to shake his hand and try to make him feel welcome and show him that maybe New York is a place that's real nice and friendly. Then why would he want to blow up a place that's so nice and friendly?

I have a comic book that I am dying to make but... the curse of success!! Finding time to make it!! AAagggghhh!!!!

Can anyone cover The Beatles?

With all of this talk about Across The Universe, a subject comes up again and again: Can the Beatles be covered successfully? A lot of people say no, I say yes. So I am curious:

Can you think of any Beatles covers that top or compete with the original?

I can give you two:
Fiona Apple's 'Across the Universe'
Stevie Wonder's 'We Can Work It Out'

Actually, I can give you a third!
Nancy Sinatra's 'Day Tripper'

Now you. Can you think of any?

Goings-on

Hamilton was great fun. Congrats to B.A. Johnston on his DVD release! Sean Ward & DJ Human Kebab got a great review on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats message board.

Video shoot last week ruled. Shut the financial district down. Some poor girl nearly crashed her car trying to make a video and drive at the same time.

Manifesto Festival was the bomb. To have all of those acts on one stage... if you grew up with Canadian Rap City when Michael Williams and then Oliver were hosting it, that closing night thing at City Hall had to be like a middle-aged person seeing Led Zeppelin, the Who, the Guess Who, and Rush all on the same bill.

Covering Nuit Blanche for Ed the Sock this weekend. Me, Brandy, and Max Brand. Might we see a certain DJ making a special appearance?

My review of Across The Universe

I'm pretty well-known as a Beatle-maniac, so a question has been popping up with great frequency: "What did you think of Across The Universe?"

As you must know by now, Across The Universe is a movie about a guy named Jude who goes from Liverpool to New York and ends up, with his American pals (Max, Lucy, Sadie, Jo-Jo, and other names all taken from Beatles song lyrics), taking part in the cultural milestones that would define the popular conception of what the 1960s were.

There's a lot to like about this movie, but for the most part it seems kind of clunky and awkward. I don't think that the music of The Beatles lends itself to this treatment, and the movie is just trying way too hard to force it. I agree that there is a drama implicit across the oeuvre, but this is a poor fit. The primary problem is that The Beatles music was not representative of the political goings-on of the times. They were always more about being timeless than being of their time, so I don't think that setting their music to this story is in keeping with the spirit of the music. Their stance was made clear in Revolution where the message, in the middle of the Vietnam War and massive cultural upheaval, is "whatever it is, don't worry about it. This too shall pass." The Beatles are timeless. They're not synonymous with that era the way Hendrix, The Doors, or scores of other artists are. And doing this same movie using any of their music might have made for a better production.

Because they're trying so hard to make the music fit the concept, certain songs need to be recontextualized to fit the plot. For an example, see I Want You (She's So Heavy). It's Uncle Sam singing "I Want You" to a Vietnam draftee, and "She's So Heavy" is sung by a bunch of soldiers carrying the Statue of Liberty through a miniature jungle. And for goodness' sake, All You Need Is Love is not about romance!

The psychedelic and abstract scenes are the most successful of the film, I just wish they would have gone a lot further with it. The Strawberry Fields Forever sequence, or the Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite sequence, either of those exist completely beyond the scope of the 60s overview the movie's trying to be. I wish they would have taken it there.

The Beatles are not a rock band. They are artists such that they could successfully 'do' any style of music they attempted. When Paul decided he wanted to do a song like the ones he grew up listening to, they didn't make a song that sounded like The Beatles doing a vaudeville number. They did a song that sounded absolutely authentic. And they did this in every style they could get near. Victorian-era English culture, surrealist art, avant-garde philosophy, all of these were much bigger influences on the group than the shifting cultural tides of the times, so maybe a psychedelic love story set in the 1890s would have been more successful. And it could be one of those movies like Marie Antoinette or A Knight's Tale, where the movie takes place way back when but is set to the sounds of now (well, forty years ago). I'm being a little silly here, getting upset over what the movie's not instead of assessing it on the merits of what it is, but still... I think that would have been more in keeping with the spirit of the source material.

But I will say this: the movie is grand, epic, and it reaches for the stars. It even manages to just barely scrape the edges of the stars with its fingertips here and there. It's definitely worth a look, but it's not the classic it really ought to have been.

Stop Worrying! Help is on the way!

So there was no Beatles on iTunes announcement last week. What a drag. But almost as exciting is finding out that HELP! is going to be on DVD! Finally!! October 29!

Tonight I'm seeing a big theatre that might be where the record release happens. I hope it's everything I'm dreaming of!

Apple/Beatles announcement tomorrow?

So tomorrow Apple is making a big announcement. I am looking forward to tomorrow because, as you know, I am a big Mac nerd. The rumor is that they are going to announce the Beatles catalog, remastered, available on iTunes. This is excellent news for me because, as you know, I am a huge Beatles maniac. That collection of music has not been updated (in terms of the quality of the sound) since 1987. Those albums were issued on CD in 1987 when CDs were brand new, and they haven't been touched since. Yeah, the hits sound great on 1, but I am looking forward to hearing all of my favorite album tracks with the bass booming and the treble sweetly swirling around the room. And apparently there's going to be new iPods, but that's not the exciting part for me.

Catching up like we used to

Last night was a fantastic night, one of the more fun ones in recent memory. Way to kill it, Herman. It was all great until I lost my glasses. That is a fuckin' drag.

I am dumb because I am all about the vidcast, but then I get in these adventures where I forgot to take my camera along and end up going "oh, this would have been awesome for the vidcast!!" Dumb.

Last night I went to sleep at about six thirty in the morning. Today I got up at two thirty in the afternoon. It's now almost four thirty, and all I feel like doing today is going to rent the second season of Weeds. I just saw the first season earlier this week and watched the whole thing, all ten episodes, in one go.

The next three months are going to be some of the busiest of my whole life but when the thing that's happening in three months (less now, actually) it is going to be bloody spectacular.