Sean Martin (cartoonist)

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For the Anglo-Irish writer, see Sean Martin.

Sean Martin is a Canadian cartoonist, set designer, and graphic designer, best known for the Doc and Raider comic strip series which appeared in LGBT publications in the 1980s and 1990s.

Born December 29, 1950, in Hereford, Texas, Martin lived in New York and San Francisco before moving to Canada in 1986. He published the first Doc and Raider strips in a Vancouver gay publication in 1987. Although the issue featuring Doc and Raider turned out to be the final issue of the publication, the strip was quickly picked up by other LGBT publications, including the Xtra! newspapers in Canada. The arrangement was a unique one in that Martin's fee for providing the panel was instead turned over to local charities and organizations, not necessarily LGBT ones; in its time, "Doc and Raider" underwrote everything from AIDS hospices in New Zealand to an arts festival in Scotland. The characters have also been used to promote safer-sex practices and AIDS education, as well as rodeos, country dance conventions, and film festivals around the world.

Martin retired the regular strip in 1997, although he drew two special five-page stories for the Little Sister's Defense Fund anthologies What's Right and What's Wrong in 2002. He has continued to work as an artist and graphic designer, and has more recently explored projects to revive Doc and Raider in new formats, particularly with a more political satire slant. Currently, in addition to the CG reprise of Doc and Raider, Martin has also turned to illustrating such projects as Candide, Gilgamesh, and Aesop's Fables.