Blog TO coverage of Benny Bunny On Wheels

This is what I woke up to this morning.

http://www.blogto.com/arts/2008/07/sean_ward_is_torontos_comic_book_superhero/

What a way to get the day started! Thanks so much to everyone who made it a hit, and thanks to Roger Cullman for covering the event!

I love this picture:


And I re-enabled comments on this blog if you get the itch to tell me something.

Benny Bunny On Wheels production blog... sort of

Instead of working at a big ass drafting table with brushes and reference books everywhere, I'm drawing this comic book atop a piece of masonite in my lap. Pages are drawn on letter-sized laser paper. And this all means that I can draw comics in my backyard. Word!

Benny Bunny Production Blog

I remember somewhere I once read Chris Ware saying that when he's drawing comics pages, he turns off everything. He isolates himself from all outside stimuli because he doesn't want any of it creeping in and influencing the work. Me, I go the other way. I want the entirety of the outside world rushing into it. I want my comics to be pop art that way. When I'm drawing comics, I've typically got a movie on the TV with the volume off (just for the pictures), music or an audio seminar on my iTunes, and stopping frequently to play a video game.

There's some magic thing that happens when I draw a comics page. It's as though I'm charging each line with some mystical force that turns it into a time capsule so that when I look at it later, whatever was going on around me and even what I was thinking just then all comes rushing back to me. I hope that you get some of that sensation when you look at the book after it's done.

What is Paid to Party about?

This Paid to Party record is the culmination of a big research project I undertook for a comic book. You know that I have a cartoon band that I create stories around, and I've got this huge story for them that I have been working on for... oh, it's got to be four years or more. This is going to be a huge thing about love, art, friendship, loyalty, creative vision, and the nature of reality. Sound like a big undertaking, hey? But when I would sit down to write it, I would realize that I still had more living to do.

I like my comics to be silly, but I think that what people respond to about them is the fact that there's a stream of truth that runs through them. Even though the story is going to be over-the-top, the portrayal of the music business has to be believable, being that the mechanics of The Changing Color's business are so central to the story. I have been front-row-centre to the entertainment industry for a long time, thanks to my connections in the Beatle world. I'd read lots and talked to a lot of movers and shakers. I'd even been in the inner circle of a few people who were negotiating record contracts with major labels. But I had to have the direct experience from the band's point of view. I had to know how it all comes together. I had to know about recording, playing shows, going on tour. I had to bridge that knowledge gap between the artist and the label.

At this point, I feel pretty confident that I could manage a band quite successfully if I wasn't so busy being an Artist. And at the end of the day, that's why I don't go be a manager, even though I know I could do it well. I have a calling, I am compelled to do the work that I do, and that right there is the crux of this big story that I'm going to tell with The Changing Color. And Mr. Lollipop. And the Queen, and Arthur Puctenbowler, and maybe even Benny Bunny.

And speaking of Benny Bunny, I am up to page 22 on Benny Bunny On Wheels. I think that the main story is going to be about 36 pages, and the book will be about 48. Man, if this was one of my series books, I would be finished already because those were only twenty pages!

PAID TO PARTY might sound like something boastful, but really it's a statement about how we're naturally supposed to live. We're supposed to experience joy every day and we're supposed to get money from doing what we would have been happy to do for free. I'm just doing my part for this movement that's afoot right now. I have hidden a success manual in the songs on PAID TO PARTY. Some of it was me recollecting struggles that I've been through, and some of it was me setting an intention, much of which has come to pass since I laid it down. The lay-person will enjoy rocking their party with this record. And those who watch The Secret or What the Bleep Do We Know over and over again, who know who Esther Hicks is, or who still believe in Santa Claus will find something special for them woven into it.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE RECORD!!!!!!

Benny Bunny On Wheels production blog

I once listened to a Tony Robbins seminar where he was talking about how you have to understand that you're always going to have problems. So the trick is not to try to eliminate problems, it's to improve the quality of your problems.

On that note, I'm trying to work on this new comic book while maintaining my responsibilities to the TV work that's keeping the bills paid. I get to thinking about how much I would love to not have to worry about anything else aside from getting this book done, and I get nostalgic for the days when I was hustling comic books on the street. But even then, my attention was distracted elsewhere by the fact that I didn't know where the rent was coming from and the fact that I had to interupt the creative flow to go out and sell. It's all challenges, just now it's a higher quality of challenge.

Funny how something as simple as drawing a hand a certain way can make my whole day.

Benny Bunny On Wheels - production blog

I have reached the point at which creating a comic book is the most joyful. I've reached the point where the gears are well greased and the drawing is flowing effortlessly, and the pages have stacked up in such a quantity that it's fully a book as opposed to a few scattered pages. Every page I draw, I want to scan it and put it up for you to see right away. It takes serious effort to keep them under wraps and not spoil any surprises.

I am having so much fun making this comic book. I'm reminded of the afternoons I used to spend in the house on Bathurst Street, when I was working feverishly to build a series but hadn't started selling on the street yet. Back then it was more important for the work to be fun than to be good. I really got distracted away from the point with the last few comic books I made, and I think that's why I had to take a hiatus from comics for a while. I'm having so much fun making this one, and I just get more and more excited to put it out there and see what you fans, especially the ones who have been patiently waiting all this time, have to say about it.

I remember a girl named Erika I used to spend a lot of time with. When I would come out with a new comic book, she would always compliment me on "the animation". I never corrected her, and in fact I took her choice of that word as high praise. I assumed that what she meant was that when she looked at the pages, they came to life in her head and that there was a real feeling of action and life and vitality in them. I think that Erika would really love the animation in Benny Buny On Wheels.

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!

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.

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.