Sean O'Reilly

Sean O’Reilly is the owner and operator of Arcana Studio, Canada's largest comic book company and also an animation studio.^[1]

Through his abilities as a developer of transmedia properties O'Reilly has led Arcana Studio to winning The Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Publisher in their first year, as voted by the retailers and readers.^[2] As well, Arcana Studio was nominated for a Harvey Award in its first year, a feat unheard of in the quarter century tenure of the award.^[3] O’Reilly is also one of the most prolific independent comic book writers in Canada and his creations have been seen in over 1,000,000 comics published in eleven countries and in numerous different languages.^[1]

O’Reilly resides in Coquitlam, British Columbia, has completed two degrees and his Masters and teaches college level courses both in Vancouver^[4] and through UCLA^[5] in addition to being a Mentor and Scriptwriting consultant for Telefilm^[6] in 2008 he won the Top 40 Under 40 Award in Vancouver^[7] and won a Moonbeam Award^[8] as well as the Graphic Novel of the Year^[9] for The Clockwork Girl. In 2013, he won the Playback award for the Top Ten To Watch and Arcana Studio won Most Promising Company of the Year from the Digi Awards.

Notable graphic novels include Kade, which has gone on to be one of Arcana's top selling books. The first series, Original Sun, came out in 2005, followed by Sun of Perdition in 2007,^[10] Shiva's Sun (2008), Rising Sun (2009), Red Sun (2010) and Prodigal Sun (2011). Kade has now been published in numerous countries including Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Croatia and Poland. In 2007, O'Reilly wrote The Clockwork Girl with co-creator Kevin Hanna and the steampunk fairytale and the book went on to win the gold medal in the Moonbeam Awards.^[11] Sean followed up the success of The Clockwork Girl with The Gwaii after being inspired by the Queen Charlotte Islands. In 2010, Sean wrote a six book series called Mighty Mighty Monsters^[12] through Capstone Publishers. The 18 book series Mighty Mighty Monsters lead to three 44-minute animated specials that Sean produced.

Sean produced The Clockwork Girl as an animated feature film which stars Alexa Vega of Spy Kids as the lead character Tesla, as well as Carrie-Anne Moss, Brad Garrett, and Jeffery Tambor.

Arcana Studio's animation division was created by O'Reilly in 2012 as part of his vision to bring the storytelling and artwork of Arcana's vast library of comic books to the big screen. Accordingly, Arcana Studio's animated projects are based on the graphic novels within their library. The animation division's first project was the animated feature The Clockwork Girl, based on the graphic novel, followed by a 13 episode mini-series of Kagagi: The Raven, which aired on APTN in September 2014. This was followed up by the animated feature Pixies in 2015, which included voice actors Christopher Plummer, Bill Paxton and Alexa Vega. O'Reilly wrote, directed and produced Pixies and also utilized his voice acting talents in the movie by voicing the main protagonist, Joe Beck.

Currently, Sean is writing/directing/producing Howard Lovecraft and The Frozen Kingdom, which will be the first ever animated film adaptation of HP Lovecraft's work. It is slated to be released on Halloween of 2016. Arcana Studio is also starting pre-production on Steam Engines of Oz. Sean O'Reilly is a producer for all of the animated projects produced by the studio and has written and directed many of the projects.

Comic book credits

• Kade - creator/writer/concept art
• Ezra - creator/writer/concept art
• Clockwork Girl - co-creator/writer^[13]
• The Gwaii - creator/writer/concept art
• The Steam Engines of Oz - creator/writer
• Pixies - creator/write
• Paradox - editor
• Dragon's Lair - editor
• Final Destination - editor
• Se7en - writer/editor
• Kiss Kompendium editor (through Harper Collins)

TV credits

• Kagagi: The Raven Season 1, Episodes 1 - 13 director/producer
• HBO's Entourage Season 2 Episode 9 - set design and Angel Quest concept art
• USA's Psych Season 1 Episode 8 - set design and Green Spirit concept art
• SpikeTV's Red Lotus - producer, concept development and animation
• Kagagi: The Raven - director, producer

Video Game credits

• Disney Interactive's Turok (concept development and comic books)
• Capcom's Rockemen (writing and development)

Movie credits

• A Dangerous Man (Paramount Pictures) - producer
• Paradox - producer
• Circle of Pain (Lions Gate Entertainment) - producer and writer
• Beatdown (Lions Gate Entertainment) - producer and writer
• Dancing Ninja - Animation Director
• Clockwork Girl - producer
• Pixies - writer, director and producer
• Howard Lovecraft and The Frozen Kingdom - director, writer and producer

Selected Awards

• Business in Vancouver's Top 40 Under 40 (2008)
• Author and co-creator of The Clockwork Girl, winner of the Moonbeam Award for Top Children's Graphic Novel (2008)
• Foreword Magazine's recognition as Top Graphic Novel for The Clockwork Girl (2008), presented at Book Expo America
• Author of The Gwaii, winner of the Moonbeam Award for Top Children's Graphic Novel (2009)

References