Sean Ward

Comic artist, musician, trend setter and philosopher, Sean Ward does it all. Author of Benny Bunny on Wheels, Mr. Lollipop and The Sean Ward Electric Comics Freak-Out, evil genius behind Peanut Punch Crank Calls and rap master responsible for “Paid to Party”, I recently had the privilege to pick his brain on what makes the man behind the legend, and where he sees himself in the big picture. A glimpse at this extremely talented, Toronto based, self-made entertainment mogul's vast repertoire of hilarious, artsy and radically unique creations can be found at http://www.seanward.net and http://www.myspace.com/seanward



Jessica Rodriguez: I know its probably next to impossible to do this, but I'm banking on your above average intelligence to humour me.

Sean Ward: Heh, OK.

JR: Summarize yourself in one sentence.

SW: Sean Ward is Beatles meets vintage Def Jam on the retro space age, pre-psychedelic acid pop tip as a Saturday morning cartoon. How's that?

JR: Incredibly condensed! You say that one of your main goals is to help bring artists together.

SW: Yeah, like helping them get going, get producing work, and pushing themselves.

JR: How do you envision yourself doing that?

SW: The main way is through the work itself, I hope. I try very hard to work something into the stories I tell that's going to be inspirational to people who have a vision to do something big or unique. So the more I learn and grow, the more I'm able to put into it, you know, on that level. And then it's through being an example. I've always been pretty open about how I live and what goes on behind the scenes, and that's so that people can see how it happens and what it takes. It's not easy but if someone says they stepped up to the challenge because they've been watching me or reading my blog or following my adventures, then I feel like what I'm doing is working.

JR: How far along that process do you feel you are?

SW: Farther all the time. I have given speeches at schools, I've conducted workshops, it's very hands-on. When I do a signing or an appearance and some dude's watching me draw him a sketch or whatever, and he's telling me about how he thought that if I could do it maybe he could do it, and now he's working on his own movie or music or whatever, those are the moments that give me juice. That's what makes it easy to keep going when it gets difficult.

JR: As an artist you bridge over many different disciplines, from comics to music to acting, although you mention that right now you want to focus on comics. Do you think having such a broad range of artistic outlets dilutes your passion or ability for any given one?

SW: I fight with this all the time. That's something I have to continually face in myself, 'what's with this compulsion to always be starting all over again?' But at the same time, it's about taking my art seriously and treating it like a business and thinking about how I can differentiate myself amongst people who are all talented and all visionary. My comics are the heart and soul of everything else that I do. Take out the comics and the rest doesn't hold together because you've lost the context. You've lost the philosophical connecting thread, does that make sense? Yeah, comics are the main thing for right now, but it all fits together. On the one hand, its an expression of my own issues and insecurities that I always have tostart new whenever I just get going on something, but on the other it's me expressing what I'm about.

JR: About your comics, the characters you create are all very distinctive, both physically and in personality. Do you base them off of people you know, or are they completely fictional?

SW: It's both. I have modeled certain characters on real people, but most of my main characters jumped pretty much fully form


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