This rapper is making 'The Watchmen of rhyming comics'

Wordburglar, the Halifax-born, Toronto-based rapper otherwise known as Sean Jordan, has two abiding passions. One, obviously, is music. The other is nerd stuff: comics, video games, science fiction. And he's been combining the two — rapping about nerd stuff — for over 20 years. 

But on his new career retrospective compilation, Wordburglar Rhymes With Comics, he's managed to combine his two loves even further, taking his lyrics and working with some of Canada's top creators to turn his songs into comics, ranging from two page spreads to full 28-page stories in a combined album and 100 page comic anthology.

"I always say [my songs are] like sonic comic books," he says. "I want them to jump out and grab you and get into your brains and just take you on adventures."

He adds that he had been kicking around the idea of turning his songs into comics for years, but started trying to make it happen in earnest in 2022.

"I put out an album called Burgonomic, and with that album, I made an effort to make the lyric booklet really exciting," he says. "It was 2022 when I was still releasing physical media — CDs — which I think people are always going to want, and I love them. So I was making the CD and I was like, 'I'm going to make this the greatest CD booklet I can!' I got different artists to draw an image representing each song."

After doing that, he felt like he could make his comic project work. He started to script his songs into comic books, determined to make a book where his lyrics were the only words on the page.

"My rhymes were narrating the story, and they were the voices of the characters," he says. "But then I would script the comics so that it was a story happening, right? This was exciting to me… This is the kind of comic I would read."

Rather than work with one artist, Wordburglar wanted to create the book as an anthology, with different artists illustrating different songs.

"I love anthology comics showcasing every kind of art style from indie artists, like a Chester Brown style, to, like, a Jim Lee superhero classic comic," he says. "So that's what I wanted to do with this anthology.. And then I began the process of pitching the idea to artists, and they all said yes."

One of those artists was Prince Edward Island-based artist Brenda Hickey, best known for her work on IDW's My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Aggretsuko from Oni Press and Sanrio. Hickey illustrates the song From Earth.

"It's just a fun song about all the different qualities that Earth has," she says. "Kind of like an advertisement to aliens about all the cool stuff on Earth. So I thought that would be a lot of fun to do, like, good sci-fi visual gags — Easter eggs, and references to pop culture things… and I kind of picked a bit of a classic look, like a The Jetsons kind of retro look, for some of the spaceships and stuff. Just keeping it really cartoony, keeping it lots of fun."

Kalman Andrasofszky — best known for his work on X-Men spinoffs NYX and X-23, as well as rebooting the series Captain Canuck in the mid 2010s — is another artist involved in the project. He'd worked with Wordburglar previously, having done the cover art for Burgonomic. While he's known Wordburglar for years —both of them worked at iconic Toronto comic store The Silver Snail at different points — Andrasofszky admits to taking a little while to get into his music. 

"I knew he did some nerdcore rap … [but I] never really checked it out," he says. "Then one Fan Expo, he came by and he's like 'Hey, man, it's my new CD. I shout you out on it.' I was like 'What? OK, cool.' So I threw it in and listened to it, and I was like 'Oh, this is actual good hip-hop. This isn't just good nerd-hip hop… Holy shit! I had no idea, dude.' So I became a fan, and he asked me to illustrate his album… which was a real thrill."

Andrasofszky illustrated a song called Sega is Bad, about how, back in the 1990s, Sega was the naughtier, more violent alternative to Nintendo. While it's one of the shorter contributions to the project — it's just a two-page spread — it does pack a lot of Sega lore into a small space. It's designed to look like a Sega cartridge box, and features characters from games like Mortal Kombat, Splatterhouse, Shinobi, and Night Trap — the sort of edgy fare that Sega enthusiasts loved. 

"I specifically chose an acid green and purple colour palette, very much prevalent in the early 90s video games … the concept is your POV — you're down on the ground having having been beaten up by these eight eight Sega characters — and the foreground hand is meant to be the viewer's hand begging for mercy."

He adds that ultimately, he just feels lucky to be part of the project.

"The whole retro game vibe is my sweet spot," he says. "I'm just so happy to be a part of it and be able to bring my particular flavour to it."

Wordburglar says that in the end, he's just stoked to have brought so many great artists together, and to do something that, as far as he knows, has never been done before.

"Tons of bands have put out comics and stuff before, but I wanted to make a comic as a comic lover and as a lover of rhymes," he says. "This would be basically, like, The Watchmen of rhyming comic books."

For more information on Wordburglar Rhymes With Comics check out the Kickstarter page.