Interviews from APE: Sean Seamus McWhinney

The weirdest job I ever had was as a waitress at the Mountain Oyster Club, an exclusive private club in Arizona, where, for some reason, a lot of the members were friends with Corbin Bernsen. What I hated most about that job was catering the members’ parties. Huge, ridiculous parties (who has 200 people for a wedding rehearsal dinner?) where there were never enough servers and there was way too much food. When I saw Sean Seamus McWhinney’s book, Diary of a Catering Whore, at the Alternative Press Expo, I thought, “I know that feeling,” and I went over to talk to him.

Sean Seamus McWhinny: Diary of a Catering Whore is autobiographical about my experiences as a waiter and bartender in high society in San Francisco. A range of experiences, all kinds of wacky scenarios that happened from private home cocktail parties to a celebrity wedding to any kind of bar mitzvahs or wedding in the middle of a field. You get all kinds of wacky situations. And after four years of doing that on and off, I thought I needed to write it down and draw it. I just started doing a couple of strips and then last year I got approached to do it as an online weekly comic series.

Head Trip is another autobiographical story. It’s kind of dealing with my dad and his Alzheimer’s and its the first part of a longer work that I’m doing. Hopefully, I’ll finish it soon. I think both book are universal in appeal. It’s not just aimed at people in catering and people with Alzheimer’s.

PRG: How do you approach the process of actually writing and drawing your comics? Do you work from a script?

SSM: That would be the most disciplined way of doing it. With Catering Whore, since its weekly, I have to churn it out quickly. I try to get my ideas down, jot notes, then I will do the composition and cut back on the writing a little bit because space it tight. Its about a page a week I do. With Head Trip its more of an outline that I fill out since its a longer work and its not something posted as quickly.

PRG: What kind of background do you have as an artist?

SSM: I started out self-taught, but went to school for animation in 2000 for year of intensive work. Then I went to university and studied creative writing, that’s where I got my writing down. But, I’ve always drawn since I was a kid.

PRG: Are you doing the artwork entirely by hand?

SSM: Its all by hand, pen and ink. Then I scan it in and tighten it up in Photoshop. But, that’s about it.

PRG: Do you have any other projects in the works?

SSM: Yeah, I have a couple of ideas. They tend to be autobiographical. I want to do something about having been an Easter Bunny in a mall. I did that for two weeks after the dot com bust and I couldn’t get work doing anything, but I did get hired as an Easter Bunny. I had to wear the whole bunny outfit and it was pretty surreal. I wrote a non-fiction piece about it, but I want to make it visual.

Diary of a Catering Whore is updated every Tuesday. McWhinney’s other works can be seen at his main website and blog. You can also buy groovy stuff at his online stores.