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

Over-complicating Things Unnecessarily

You know what I always (and I mean ALWAYS) get fucked up over? How much to put in here. I mean, I want to blog about every exciting thing that comes up but then I get self-conscious about stuff if it's not set in stone yet. Like how I was asked if I want to host a show, for example. Now, of course I want to host a show. But do I come on here all "Hey everyone! Guess what! Maybe I'm hosting a show!"? Because it's not a done deal and I don't want to later come on and go "Yeah, I'm actually not hosting a show" if it doesn't work out. If I talk about every little thing that's even a maybe in here, am I getting everyone's power of visualization working for me? Or am I jinxing stuff? Or do I just over-complicate things for myself unnecessarily?

Here are some pictures taken at my cousin's wedding.

This is me and my siblings and their lovers. We party.


This is me having just finished eating. It was good.

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!!

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.

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?

mastees.com commercial

Click to Play

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

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.

Going Out on a School Night

So last night I got in from Christmas shopping and I called my buddy Joe Fuda. You see, Joe had me apply some cartoon special effects to some photos he took of Tokyo Police Club and I was checking in to see how he liked it. He loved it, and he asked me if I wanted to go along to Footwork where there was a woman from a band in the 80s who was spinning. On the way, we bumped into his friend Lisa D, and she's a riot. So we took her with us. We got to the club, and in two seconds flat I met K-Os, which was nice cuz I'd been wanting to meet him. I had watched him host RapCity earlier that day or the previous night, and he played all rap videos from my favorite era, the early 90s. After clinking glasses with K-Os, I bumped into Anna Cyzon. Anna is a beauty, a Myspace friend for ages but we've kept missing each other round the way. Now we finally got to meet. Then me and Lisa D and another friend named Emily ripped the dancefloor a new one. Joe Fuda took a whole bunch of pictures on account of how he's a photographer, and we all lived happily ever after.