Monday Morning on Canal Street (2 Moments)
Sean Ward
Animated GIF, 2011
$175

The Silver Snail brought the party again for Free Comic Book Day.  That’s when the whole comic book industry goes in on giving away specialty ‘Free Comic Book Day’ editions of whatever comic books the publishers are trying to showcase.  The whole industry uses it as an excuse to have a party with costumes, guest artists, freebies & prizes.

I’ve been a guest artist at the Silver Snail for Free Comic Book Day regularly and it’s become an annual tradition here on my blog to post my Free Comic Book Day drawings for the fans.

Perhaps my favorite drawing of the day, this person wanted Deadpool:

Always happy to do the superheroes:

Mother’s Day played into a lot of people’s requests.

It was this kid’s birthday…

…and here’s what he got!

Two takes on The Green Lantern:

Another satisfied customer!

Star Wars is always a popular theme:

This girl’s name is Mandi.  She has been coming around stuff I’m doing since she was a little teenager.  When she fell in love with her dude, she brought him to me to have me draw their portrait.  And now it’s a tradition they do every year!

Here is the 2011 edition…

This minimalist Batman was a big hit…

This was a request from a cool kid who wanted “something Modest Mouse…”

To see even more of my drawings from Free Comic Book Day at the Silver Snail plus some of the costumes worn by the staff, see the gallery on my Facebook art page: facebook.com/SeanWardSuperParty

And to see last year’s Free Comic Book Day drawings, click here!

Check me out!

A few weeks ago I had to cut out of Harth Night early to go have my picture taken for a mixed-media portrait by the amazing and talented Kelly Grace.  Now the painting is finished, and available for sale.  I think there are ten in the first edition.  She’s got them for sale this weekend in Toronto at The Artist Project.

Here I am on the wall – postcard-sized, gel transferred, and available for purchase:

A view on the whole series:

Kelly is at booth #541 at The Artist Project.  Just look for the pizzazziest booth in the whole place.

@MissLateJuly – I thought this was you!

Kelly is just starting on Twitter!  Follow her – @KellyGraceArt

To Qualify for Eightshit, images must be 128×128 pixels, be created in MS Paint or some other crappy picture editing program, use garishly bright colors, and contain a legible word.

Here are the Eightshit avatars I have created so far:

Check out eightshit.me to see who got my avatars!

I got an email a little while ago from a girl named Emma asking me what advice I could pass along to her friend about how to get his career started as an artist. I thought I would answer her here on the blog since this is the kind of question professionals get asked most frequently.

Morning Sean Ward,

Thanks for hitting me back on Twitter! The reason I wanted to connect with you is kinda weird. I am interested in becoming better acquainted with the Toronto comic book scene. I mean, I’ve lived here for 6 years, and I’ve haunted the Hairy Tarantula and Silver Snail, etc… But a buddy of mine just moved here from the Territories and wants to get into comics here… drawing them mostly…and I have no advice to give him, so I thought I should find someone who could! (also I am pretty pumped about everything you do, as I am a videographer and hip hop head… seems we have things in common!)
Anywho, what advice would you give to a newby transplant about getting into comics here? Toronto is a scary move, and not knowing anyone here doesn’t help much. Whaddya say Sean? Words of wisdom from someone who knows what he is talking about? It would be much appreciated, I would take you for a coffee or beer if you’d let me!
Have a good one dude!
Emma

This question of how one goes about getting started in comics or in any art has been asked many times. Those of us who have been asked it have usually heard different people answer it different ways. But here are a couple of the recurring themes that emerge:

1. The person doing the asking has a conception that there’s a specific blueprint that can be followed.

2. There is no blueprint. Everyone’s journey is unique.

Tony Robbins and guys like that tell you that success is a system that can be easily duplicated. I’ve got a lot out of listening to them, reading books like Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and attending workshops & seminars. I keep a Bible & a Hare Krishna prayer book near my work space, making a point to flip through them often for context and insight. But those materials do not provide the answers. They help you be the kind of person who finds the answers.

And that’s what it’s all about: success is a process, not an event. It’s about having a vision, and the continual process of doing whatever you can to try to move closer to it.

When I first started doing comics, with no connections in the industry or the scene, I jumped in and went crazy. I spent a year cranking out as many issues of a series as I could, photocopying them and selling them on the street downtown. The most important thing was not how good they were, it was how many of them I could get out there and how many people I could get looking at them. I was wildly prolific – an idea that’s become popular in the business world with the recently popular rallying cry of “ship often”

You’ve heard about the 10,000 hours theory, right? That’s the idea that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to get good at something. So Emma – the only advice there is to pass along to your friend is to start putting in those hours right away.

As my mother used to say: “There’s no way around – you have to go through it.”

So that’s for your buddy to get down to making some comics.  As for getting in with the scene, that’s what Twitter is so damn good for.  Follow these people, talk to them often, jump into the conversation, and go to anything you hear them talk about going on.

Essential Toronto Comics Scene Twitter links: @SilverSnailTO @TDotComics @EscapeFromRL @comics212

(If you can think of anyone else who would be good for Emma to follow, let me know in the comments)

I’m working on my second video for Springfree Trampoline, and I just finished the stack of drawings that are being used in it.

I needed to devote two days to finishing this off.  Drawing is something that I can’t do well when it’s squeezed in for moments at a time. To get anything good, I have to devote whole days to it and get lost in it.

If you don’t see me on Twitter for hours at a time, it usually means that I’ve gone all “Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings” on you.

Where do you go when you’re getting down to business?

The Wonder Mint and myself are very pleased to present this rendition of Antoine Dodson’s viral internet meme in the original text by William Shakespeare.

Watch Now:

And the more famous modernized version:

It was cold out for Nuit blanche this year, but you know we kept it hot.

Nuit Blanche 2010 in two parts:

.

PART ONE

.

PART TWO

.

EDIT: Melissa Smich dropped her own video, complete with an original freestyle rap by yours truly.  And then she drops out of the race!!!  Yeah, some kind of conflict of interest with her new job.

photos by Jonathan Greenwald (@shrued on Twitter)

.

And then, just for fun, a blast from the past:

NUIT BLANCHE: THE MOVIE (2007)

Also check out Mike’s blog post of the night (clicky)

Follow me on Twitter and maybe we can go out for Nuit Blanche next year: @seanward

iJustine laid down the challenge, and I have answered the call.

Here is the image from my submitted assignment above…

LYRICS:
There’s a brand new thing, it’s shiny and true
It’s Social Media and that’s what’s new
(Talk to everyone around the world
And hope to hell someone’s listening)

Now I got friends and I got kin
But here I was by myself again
I thought I was alone, but then I found
This thing called Social Media going down
(Never be lonesome again
There’s always a few million people to talk to)

If you get enough people to follow you back
There’s fame & riches at the end of the track
So you follow me and I’ll follow you
And maybe we’ll get on TV a time or two!
(You get a million followers, you can pretty much write your own ticket after that
But you don’t get it if you care how many followers you’ve got)

I don’t know but I once thunk
There’s nothing in the world like more free junk
Might have to get a job to pay for a new spot
To put all the awesome free swag I got
(The free drinks are nice
They don’t take up any room in my suitcase!)

I don’t know but I’ve been told
The girls want a purse made out of gold
You get enough from a PR company for free
You’ll be like them folks on MTV!
(Internetting is like meditating
It’s more important than ever to be careful what you wish for)

Ev’ryone I meet’s got a brand new car
But I’m walkin’. Guess I ain’t goin’ too far!
People flyin’ here & there for free
While I’m gettin’ around by TTC
(I swear in my tweets. I dont’ represent anyone’s brand well
And now I’ve gotta pay for my flight like everyone else)

We talk ev’ry day but I don’t see you much
At least we’ve got the means to be in touch
My followers are up and my Klout score’s high
I wonder how many it takes to get by…
(I don’t do it for the money
But it’s hard not to think about the money when you’ve got five dollars in your pocket and you’re deciding between eating or riding the subway

* * *

The Making of
Talkin’ Social Media Blues

The first time anyone saw TALKIN’ SOCIAL MEDIA BLUES was when I screened it for a small group of Twitter peeps as an impromptu party to celebrate my 100th day in a row of Daily V-Loggin’:

But an bringing an idea like this from inception to materialization is no party. I got the idea for the song, wrote it straight away, and recorded it the next morning. Here is the Daily Video Blog entry from when I was working on the beat in which I explain how I came up with the idea:

Two days later, I shared footage of the recording of the song as well as brought you with me for the car ride the very first time anyone heard the song:

I got into some deep thinking about consumer culture the day that I went to make the signs for this video:

I shot the video on my own in an afternoon in five locations around town that I had scoped out. I was very clear with myself that I was trying to do something reminiscent of DONT LOOK BACK…

And then the day that I was editing the video, I got really heavy about being an artist:

This video was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. If you are a Social Media enthusiast, I hope you think it’s funny.

Subscribe to my Youtube channels – seanward for my Daily V-Loggin’, and TheSeanWardShow for my comedy videos