Courtesy of Mushy Pony

TIFF has landed. The Cowgirls decided to tackle two events yesterday – one with a beer theme and the other with a hockey theme; because since when is TIFF about the movies? Below is the outline of our night and how we went from being the cool, classy babe on a motorbike to being spoon-fed poutine in a corner by our date at 1:00 a.m.

Event #1: The Stella Artois Party.

We met up with our pony friend, Sean Ward, to video-blog and greet fellow writers well-known in the Twitterverse – one of which being an avid reader of Mushy Pony! (Really, people are reading this thing?) It was pretty much your average shmooze-fest over at the Drake‘s rooftop bar, except with everyone only drinking Stella and film folks constantly eying the door for M. Night Shyamalan. Us on the other hand, were fashionably late thanks to our dentist appointment at 2:30 – we didn’t foresee our lengthy explanation to the receptionist as to why 2:30 was such a hilarious time for a dentist appointment. Still don’t think she got it.

Courtesy of Mushy Pony

Courtesy of Mushy Pony

Here is Sean’s video from the party: (we make several awkward appearances)

Event #2: TIFF Opening Night at Liberty Grand.

Somewhat like the prom, our date for the night picked us up in a cab (driven by the biggest chatterbox in history) and together we prepared for our grand entrance at Liberty Grand. However, expecting no more than a few drink tickets and celebrity sightings, nothing could prepare us for the grandness that was: hockey rink dance floors, wings, beer, candy, chandeliers, gowns, disco balls – and that was just the first room. After a few glasses of Prosecco, we followed a neat little staircase hidden in the courtyard and “accidentally” wound up standing in the VIP section. Boom. Just like that – limitless Prosecco became limitless Moet. Just when we thought the night couldn’t get any better, we discovered the make-your-own poutine station and were soon found huddled in a corner gorging on cheese curds and gravy.

Courtesy of Mushy Pony

Courtesy of Mushy Pony.

Courtesy of Mushy Pony

Courtesy of Mushy Pony

Only one day in, and we’re already in a major tiff with our liver.

– The Cowgirls.

Courtesy of Sean Ward.net

As we pulled out our Dictaphone ready to interview daily vlogger and comic, Sean Ward, he pulled out his video camera aiming to shoot us instead. It was a classic Western duel held bang-on time for happy hour at a posh patio table along Queen East. But quick thinking isn’t his only forte; Sean has been exploring his creativity since childhood, and continuously living his dream despite all scoffs sent his way. Sitting there, aiming our technological devices at each other, he decided to fire first:

Sean: So, how did you get started in this business?

Pony: Forget it! You sold comics on the street for three years, that’s far more interesting. What was that like?

Sean: It was a lifestyle choice, really. People who have a strong negative perspective could never do what I was doing. Selling or not selling, if you just stand on a corner of Queen St. for an hour and catch how many people smile back at you or say hello back to you, you’ll understand how psychologically draining it really is.

Pony: And you do it all for these creations of yours. How did you come up with characters such as “Benny Bunny?”

Sean: I hit a slower period during the first Winter of starting the comics where I had time to develop a new concept. I just made it up as I went along, got to 48 pages and stopped. In the first story, Benny Bunny’s girlfriend gets abducted by aliens – who then send her back to Earth when they realize she’s a bunny and not a human. In the second story, he’s invited to host an awards show because he’s a rock star now…

Pony: Because of the aliens?

Sean: No. That’s irrelevant. We’ve moved on. So then Benny Bunny gets killed at this awards show and you see the ambulance taking him away. The doctors pronounce him dead, the girlfriend’s crying… The End! In the next story, called “Benny Bunny Meets God”, he meets the All-Mighty and gets sent back to Earth because his work’s not done. So then in the last story, well, that pretty much is just the lyrics to “Hey Jude” but with Benny Bunny acting them out.

Courtesy of Sean Ward

Pony: Haha I had to ask didn’t I? So where can we buy these intensely imaginative comics of yours?

Sean: You can get a few at Silver Snail, or from me directly, but largely they’re out of print. I once had a publisher who got into what I was doing, we sat down for a few meetings and stuff. But then it hit a point where he got cold feet and said: “your stuff is so darn weird, I’m not sure if anyone’s going to get it”. And I’ve never been they type to give the elevator speech to men in suits, you know? I’m just a kid who’s been drawing ever since he could tie a robe into a cape and fly around the house.

Pony: Who was your favourite superhero?

Sean: SPIDER-MAN!! I used to like Superman but he let me down. You have to keep it campy and silly and fun! That’s where DC Comics went wrong – they kept trying to paint him into this complex world with lame supporting characters like Bibbo. No, no. Spider-man is my homie.

Pony: And if you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Sean: Oh I’ve got superpowers galore! Endurance being the most useful one right now. People will mock you, especially as a comic, or they’ll constantly tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing with your time. There’s a constructive and destructive way to look at anything, right? And it’s up to you to find the constructive way in.

Pony: Onto this daily video blogging, don’t people stare at you filming yourself all the time? Have you always been this confident in-front of a camera?

Sean: When I was a kid, I used to walk to school as if I were in a music video the entire way. Posing, dancing, and making up songs as I went. Blame it on watching too many old ’40s films but that’s what I did. I built movie sets out of my Lego pieces, shit like that. It all comes back to playing dress-up and flying around the house with my robe on. We all got teased for doing that as kids, and at some point we gave up and stopped trying to pretend. And I’m just that idiotic kid who never stopped.

Courtesy of Sarah Thomson

To check out Sean’s daily vlogging, head over to his website here, or look out for him hosting this weekend’s Toronto Independent Music Awards. For a snippet of our mutual interview, here is his video blog from that day (our awkward appearance at the end):

– Emma Farquharson