Wizard World Chicago '08

At long last, the in-depth report of our trip to Chicago!



The personnel: me, Mars, Divvy, and Zen.

We started on the road at 4 AM on Thursday morning. We got to Chicago in the afternoon, checked into the hotel, and got the table set up in the Artist Alley of the convention in time for it to open for Preview Night.

Here is the view of our aisle from our table:


And here is our table once it was all set up:


We didn't do many sales on Preview Night, nor on the Friday for that matter. Our aisle was a dud. Low energy, our neighbors sneering at us for being silly, there's a million and one reasons why we weren't doing so hot at first.

Later in the day on Friday I was wandering the convention hall and bumped into my buddy Mike Holman from Jackass. He asked how we were doing, and I explained that we are not doing the numbers I would have liked, and that I was thinking about taking over one of the small press or Autograph Area tables that look unclaimed or abandoned. He pointed at one such booth and said "Well I don't have anything to sell! Take mine!"

I quickly ran back to the Artist Alley and explained our good fortune to the rest of our party. We packed up the table and made like a Beatles cartoon running from one end of the hall to the other to get set back up as quickly as possible.

Here is our 2nd table, before the back wall got covered in balloons:


We were using Mike Holman's table, and our neighbors included The Honky Tonk Man, The Iron Sheik, Johnny Fairplay, and Gail Kim.









We were had our booth decorated like a children's birthday party, and we were giving away loot bag toys as sales premiums. As the Honky Tonk Man explained above, these were a big hit and turned our aisle into a big party.



On the Friday night, we were invited to go with Mike Holman and Johnny Fairplay to see a Vanilla Ice concert at a bar called Cans. They had the street beside the bar shut down with a stage set up out there. The crowd overflowed the whole area.

Free Jagermeister shots for everyone in the front row:


Then we hung out backstage....



And after backstage we went up to the afterparty where, upon finding out we were from Canada, everyone wanted to ask us questions and test our trivia knowledge.



We even got serenaded with a rousing rendition of O Canada from the Americans!

Zen is not used to playing with the big kids, but he was keeping up with us. shotgunning beers, doing shots, the whole thing. But when we got back to the hotel and Mars, Divvy and I kept the party rockin' in the lobby of the hotel (the lobby of the hotel is overrun with a huge party every night of the convention), Zen went straight to the room to collapse into bed without even saying good night.



Saturday was the first good day for business. We were selling the "Party Pack", in which you would receive pretty much one of everything Zen and I were selling.

We even came up with a theme song for the Party Pack:


The Honky Tonk Man came to the convention with a suitcase full of beer on the Sunday, which he shared with us. Then we left to go home on Monday, with a stop for Breakfast at IHOP.



And then we got back to Toronto in time to party for Canada Day!

For more photos from the trip: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30621&l=31bc8&id=514079365

And for more crazy videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/seanward

Party Mode

Remember in the last post when I said I wasn't going to go into party mode? Well I did go into party mode. But what could I do?? It was open bar!!

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.

Wizard World Chicago Oh-Seven in a Series of Random Cuts

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Here is a rapid-fire overview of my recent trip to Wizard World Chicago as a guest of Accidental Comics and Ed & Red's Night Party. Quick Cuts = Rapid Fire

mastees.com commercial

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Mutual Adoration Society - they want to make a T-shirt about you. This woman's comments were not scripted. Her testimonials are real.

Ed & Red Do Cottage Comicon

Last weekend we went to Chicago, but the weekend before that we went to Lionshead Lakefront Resort & Yacht Club. There was a one-day comic book convention happening, and the resort was supposed to plan some things for us to do to get on camera. They didn't plan anything, so Steven (executive producer) told the CityTV camera guy to not bother coming. But my camera has a really good movie mode on it, so I started shooting stuff. Before long, a story began to emerge and I took the reins and started ordering everyone around. Next thing you know, voila! Instant classic short film.

Wizard World Chicago '07

Chicago this past weekend! What great fun. I was down with the Accidental Comics crew: Liana K (publisher) and Steven Kerzner (executive producer of Ed the Sock). We were in the Small Press area this time, instead of the Artist Alley. When we arrived and saw our spot in the corner across from Lou Ferrigno, we thought we were going to have a hard time attracting patrons as we were in a weird spot that was kind of awkward to get to. But, as we always do, we made it a party. Our booth was jumping all weekend. We even sold out of some of our items!

One of the most fun things was when we would go and take over the DC booth. Liana's got a few costumes that she likes to wear at these things, and the guys at DC Comics fall in love with her when she's got a DC character on. We went over when she was Bat-Woman, and she had a crowd for autographs like it was a scheduled signing. She went over as Power Girl and Dan DiDio himself (the boss at DC Comics) invited her to be a special guest of the DC Comics panel discussion.

On Sunday, after the con was over, we went out to a joint called Gino's East because we heard that they had great pizza (they do). When we got to back to the hotel, who do we see in the lounge? All of our buddies from DC again! Shout-out to Jim, John, and Steven from DC Direct, and Mike on the comics side. We hung out with them, and I think we're going to go get a tour of their office and shoot it for the show. They want to come up to Toronto and be in the hot tub too, but who wouldn't?

So all in all it was a fantastically productive and lucrative weekend. The new Ed & Red comic book (the one I edited, art directed, and drew the cover for) was a huge hit. I shot lots of video, and I've got photos on my Facebook.

Up and down

There are times that make you feel like right proper rock star, and there are times that remind you that in the grand scheme of things, you ain't but a speck of dust in the breeze. You ever had one of those nights when everything that can go wrong does, and you can't really be upset about it because you're just in awe of the sheer magnitude of the fuckery? That was my night last Thursday at the U.S.S. CD release show. That just made me double my efforts and give an even more slamming performance, but it still took a couple of days to shake it off.

Sunday was a different story. I sat for a photo shoot with Ana Cop (sorry Ana, I don't know how to do the C with the accent-thing on top!), one of the greatest discoveries I've made in ages. She's really good. And I was lucky enough to have her photograph me in... well I don't wanna say what the concept was because the pictures are going to knock you out. But I will say that the abundance of leg and ass was a real treat.

Staying up late

The show's tomorrow. I am so ready. I want it like a vicious cartoon dog wants an exaggerated T-Bone steak, and I will tear it up exactly the same. The energy in the room at rehearsal just blows the roof off!

Weights and fifty minutes of cardio today. That was pretty fun. There's TVs on all of the machines so while everyone else is watching stock quotes, I'm watching cartoons.

Just for kicks, I went to an audition for voice-over work. That would be fun to do once in a while, a voice-over job.

I've been shooting all kinds of great footage and I so badly want to edit it into something fun for the blog and the podcast. I've gotta make time for that.

It's Getting Serious Now!

Today is Friday. This has been a busy week. And this is going to end up being an even busier month.

Wednesday I was in a casting session for ten hours. Casting for a main villain, a downstairs neighbor, a group of snipy girls, and a female customer. We saw everyone from great people who had their shit together, all the way down to people who had no business acting at all. They were to come deliver a prepared bit of dialogue, then they got surprised by having to play some improv with me. That was fun. And it is just more and more stunning all the time to see the machinery running, all of these talented and experienced people working their butt off to make my vision come to fruition. Today I went back to talk about props and wardrobe. I'm being taken shopping next Saturday!!

This weekend is going to be a lot of fun because it's another weekend of taping Ed's Night Party episodes. I always get a kick out of it when a joke I came up with makes it into the show, or when I see props I made get used. Every so often I get a jolt when it pops back into my head that this is what I'm doing, writing and producing for TV with my own show in development, when not even a year ago I was still near to having a break-down over paying the rent.

The performance on the 27th is going to be just off the hook. Between shooting it for the TV project, Human Kebab returning to Ontario, and the release of the Wizard of Rock's CD, there is just no way that there is anything more fun going on anywhere in this city.

My movie won't move!

My new favorite thing is making little video blog movies instead of posting a bunch of photos. At the Toronto Comic Book Fan SuperShow (a whole bunch of fun, by the way) I took a whole bunch of video on my new camera. Then I spent most of last night and a few hours today editing a cool little two-minute movie of the thing in Windows Movie Maker. Good Lord, that program sucks. And now it's even worse as it just won't render the video, like the operation is too complicated for my piece of shit computer to handle. I hope this is a little glitch that will sort itself out like when my browser kept crashing every time I tried to attach a file to an email last week but even still, I can't wait for my new Macbook Pro. I've got a rather sizable chunk of the cost saved up already, I need it!! I am a creative professional and for the five years of my operation I have been handicapped by the poor quality of my tools. But I'm coming out of the woods!! I should have that new computer by the summer!

In the plus column, you can now check out a gallery of photos from my last recording session in my Facebook photos! They were taken by the beautiful and talented Miss Genevieve Blais.