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It was a great pleasure to work with Sean.  I came in to the process with some ideas about the images I wanted to use, and Sean helped me translate everything in a way that worked well in the comic book format.  He also contributed a number of new images and ideas that would never have occurred to me.  We went through several stages of rough pencil drawings before Sean produced the final copy with ink and watercolors on huge art boards.

 

Sean was obsessed with getting every little detail right: choosing the lettering for all of our text, calibrating all of the scanners carefully to reproduce the colors faithfully, and choosing the right printing company to produce the physical books.  Nearly every scene in the book was produced based on photo and video references, so the book is shockingly realistic for people who have attended the schools depicted or worked at the companies depicted.  The final product is a beautiful work of art, and highly functional as a teaching object and marketing collateral.

     — David White, Founding Partner, Menlo Coaching

Sean Michael Robinson is a writer, illustrator, musician, and former high school art teacher, as well as a man-about-town and lover of science.

In his brief time as an adult human he's drawn hundreds of pages of comics, scribbled a gazillion portraits, sung two seasons as a mercenary Christmas caroler, performed on a hundred street corners, in a dozen plays, and written and recorded half a dozen albums. This is the very short list, leaving out as it does candy salesman, lifeguard, and other unsavory occupations.

In 2011, while several hundred pages into a graphic novel entitled Discards, he began writing for the pop-culture criticism website the Hooded Utilitarian. Several months later, an article on that site went viral, leading to the opportunity to co-write and illustrate Down in the Hole: the unWired World of H.B. Ogden for powerHouse Books.


Shortly after the release of Down in the Hole in September 2012, he toured street corners around the world as one half of the fiddle/guitar/vocal duo The Summer Januaries. He was fortunate to marry the other half of said duo immediately after said tour.

 

In July of 2014 he began working with writer/illustrator Dave Sim on the multi-year task of digitally restoring the 6,000 page Cerebus epic, using the best available materials, working with film negatives, print materials, and aged original artwork on a per page basis.

As of November , he's revising one book and contemplating another, and waiting for that next surprise to come.

Book Credits

Centralia (Living the Line 2023) — publisher, text adaptation, editor

House on Fire (Living the Line, 2023)) — publisher, editor, additional design

The Exile (Living the Line, 2023) — text adaptation, design, lettering

The Abolition of Man (Living the Line, 2022 and 2023) — co-writer, publisher, prepress

PLAZA (Living the Line, 2022) — publisher, letterer, designer

The Strange Death of Alex Raymond (Living the Line, 2021) — publisher, letterer, production work, afterword

Six Macro Cons (Living the Line, 2020) — publisher

You Don't Know Jack! (Living the Line, 2020) — publisher, partial co-write and illustrate (supplemental strips)

Abby Wize — Away (Wize Media, 2019) — cover illustrator

Church & State II Remastered Edition (Aardvark/Vanaheim, 2019) — digital restoration, layout, afterword

Jaka's Story Remastered Edition (Aardvark/Vanaheim, 2019) — digital restoration, layout, afterword

* Admitted! Diane & Chad's Excellent (MBA) Adventure (2018) — illustrator, writing assistance

Minds Remastered Edition(Aardvark/Vanaheim, 2018) — digital restoration, layout, afterword

Cerebus Volume One Remastered Edition(Aardvark/Vanaheim, 2016) — digital restoration, layout, afterword

Going Home Remastered Edition (Aardvark/Vanaheim, 2016) — digital restoration, layout

Reads Remastered Edition(Aardvark/Vanaheim, 2016) — digital restoration, layout, afterword

Church & State Volume One Remastered Edition (Aardvark/Vanaheim, 2016) — digital restoration, layout, afterword

High Society Remastered Edition (Aardvark/Vanaheim, 2015) — digital restoration, afterword

*Down in the Hole: the unWired World of H.B. Ogden (powerHouse Books, 2012) (co-writer, illustrator, design)

The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song (Abrams, 2012) (background inker)

Oregon Trail: The Road to Destiny (Sasquatch, 2011) (inker/assistant)

* Authored or co-authored titles are in bold.

Press

Interview with Shoutout SoCal

Interview with the Rereading Wolfe podcast

Q + A with San Diego Voyager

interview and performance on Seattle station KUOW's Weekday

interview with Michael Sragow for the Baltimore Sun

interview with Noah Berlatsky for the Atlantic

interview with TimeOut New York

Hyperallergic review of Down in the Hole, by Marietta Abrams Brill

Foreword Reviews review of Down in the Hole, by Michael Beeman

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