D.J. Coffman - Cartoonist

Well, they won’t be going out through Comic Shops like planned since Diamond canceled the order because there weren’t enough orders to meet their “benchmark”— BUT I still want to get these rings to the Hero By Night fans out there. In fact, I was itching to start selling these things back in February!

Bottom line, it’s $20+5 shipping for USA/Canada — International orders are $20+11 shipping.

I’ll be shipping the rings out sometime in June– but get your orders in now if you want to be guaranteed you get one in this run of the forging…

I seem to be losing track of my days. It feels like Friday. Thank god it’s Thursday… let’s dive into my morning thoughts.

Woke up to my youngest son on the toilet exclaiming he needed help. He’s home sick. First thing this morning I was up running to get some Children’s Immodium and I was also informed to pick up something called Cheetos Cracker Tracks, which I guess is a medicine of some kind to make children feel better. Poor little guy. He’s so tiny for almost 7 years old. We call him the Leprechaun a lot, because not only is he tiny, but he has the flaming red irish hair… and a temper to match. It’s probably with all parents and their kids, but for some reason when he’s sick, he has this power over me where he’ll get his every wish and desire. You know when they’re faking it though.

Political Theater - Last night made for some awesome political theater. There was Clinton, poised to be interviewed on all of the major news anchors simultaneously, probably all about to ask her “Why the hell are you still running???” — and suddenly… BREAKING NEWS. John Edwards has endorsed Barack Obama. I watched the rally– I felt that energy come back into the campaign again. This was the juice he needed after the big loss In West Virginia.

It pained me to hear old bigots like Pat Buchanan on MSNBC denying the fact that the vote there was racially motivated, and accusing the anchors of being biased on their coverage and playing the race card. Chris Matthews broke it down for the old coot, but explaining that they were only reporting facts… the fact is, based on voluntary exit polling, conducted randomly to get to the average of truth– more people in West Virginia than ANY OTHER STATE were willing to say out loud that they wouldn’t vote for Barack Obama because of his race. Pat went on all day, and all night on Tuesday about how Barack doesn’t have the vote of the “blue collar working folks” —- I wanted to throw something at the screen.  But along comes John Edwards making his choice. John is champion of that demographic, and it’s not about race… it’s about poverty. His dropped some truth in his speech. I felt happy about that. We likely saw the Democratic ticket last night. Hillary should buy a clue and drop out today if she wants any real stake in the party. Change is coming in fast and hard.

Working - Still inking here. Almost wrapped up on the latest issue of HBN. I have about 4 pages to ink, and possibly one page to redraw and letter now again.

Heavy Ink- I’ve been informed that we’re currently the #2 sold thing on Heavy Ink right now according to the front page. We’re behind Atomic Robo who is in #1. And that’s fine with me, that’s a damn fine book. So thanks to all the friends out there who have been buying and subscribing through HEavy Ink. You can’t beat it, man. 20% off, Free Shipping? You can’t beat it. Check them out.

Nice words… For anyone who hasn’t met me in person or thinks I’m a giant ego filled ass of some kind, please read the kind words by our old friend, Creepy Carly. See? The things you may have heard are not true.

Still frustrated by things I have no control over and don’t want to speak publicly of. Its probably only a matter of time before my other personality takes over and starts splashing some truth all over the place, which usually leads to meltdown or self destructiveness, losing friends– you know the drill. I’m trying to keep that voice quiet. It’s very hard, but I’m doing it.

Back to the drawing board…

Look at me
Look at me
Just called to say that it’s good to be
Alive
In such a small world
I’m all curled up with a book to read
I can make money open up a thrift store
I can make a living off a magazine
I can design an engine sixty four
Miles to a gallon of gasoline
I can make new antibiotics
I can make computers survive aquatic conditions
I know how to run a business
I can make you wanna buy a product
Movers shakers and producers
Me and my friends understand the future
I see the strings that control the systems
I can do anything with no assistance
Cuz I can lead a nation with a microphone
With a microphone
With a microphone
And I can split the atom of a molecule
Of a molecule
Of a molecule

FLOBOTS are coming… Do not rely on this broadcast alone….

A day in May. A May day.

May Day. May Day. Hmph… go figure.

I slept in today until 10am. I didn’t intend to do this, but found myself laying in bed “thinking” and planning– then before I knew it, 10am. ARG! — So I’ve been bustling around here all day playing catchup. Inked a page so far, which is unacceptable– but spent a lot of time on the phone today with business stuff…

I have a couple things going on I can’t really talk about, and at some point I have to do the dreaded “talk to a lawyer” thing or find someone I can trust to help me draft up a simple agreement so I don’t get screwed in upcoming endeavors. I don’t have or want to pay for johnny law shit right now though until my financial situation improves a bit—– it’s all a weird catch 22,– I know this is vague, but my financial situation can’t improve until either A. I’m paid on time or B. I work really hard on speculative things.

The thought has crossed my mind to open myself up to commissions online for you know, comic booky stuff, people who want Green Lantern fighting Hulk or something— , or even open myself up and say I’m available on the side for paying small jobs. So I guess I’m available even though I haven’t advertised this fact other than my blog. Call me! heh.

My main workload right now is working on Hero By Night, I’m ALMOST done inking issue 4, then i have a window to work on top secret project 1. But yeah… I gotta get MY ducks in a row here money wise as things are getting pretty stupid tight. It’s only temporary, but it sucks.

Related news… I guess Diamond canceled the Hero By Night power ring through that catalog. Not enough people ordered through comic shops (which I don’t blame them really) - BUT this may be a good thing for fans because my Alchemist is ready to go at forging said rings so I could sell them direct to hardcore readers online, direct from me. And it’ll be a tad cheaper as well– so that’ll be a win for Hero By Night fans…. It frustrates me a little bit though– I could have been probably selling the rings since late February. Oh well!— I think it’s become one of my goals again to just not even HAVE to use the direct market system. I keep thinking about McCloud’s book Reinventing Comics and his illustrations of cutting out the middlemen…. this is what I use to do with Yirmumah and it worked out pretty well….. Some day soon.

Now I’m on DAD duty here as my wife is out running around picking up bridal dresses or some crap with my sister-inlaw — so that means I get to go feed three kids… my oldest son says I cook better though, so NYAH-NYAH to the Mrs.!

By the way— here’s her new  tattoo she got based on the design I did for her. It turned out groovy… she’s so cute. She is the BOMB.

It would be awesome if the owner of this Mulligan’s tavern place in Marietta Georgia that’s selling racist t-shirts were to be sued for copyright infringement by whoever owns Curious George, and it shut down their entire livelihood.

Just sayin.

There are things that are bugging me that I don’t wish to speak about publicly. And some that I do. This is one of them.

-An article about Obama supporters encountering racism and bigotry while campaigning.

Well, I’m glad I’m not alone now. I’d written before on the blog about the sort of things we were experiencing in Southwestern, PA as Obama supporters. From flat out racist comments from family members, to more shady things like our homemade Obama sign being stolen, yard trashed– comments at the voting booths in both Fayette and Westmoreland County— That article mentions Pennsylvania quite a bit. This is no shock to me, but it makes me a little ashamed. I don’t want people reading the comments of a small population here and figuring everyone from this area thinks that way. It’s not so.

It’s a weird sort of closeted racism and homophobia here. Really, ANYTHING different than what they’re use to, these bigots turn on. They usually do it from behind closed doors or in whispers, which is what bothers me. If they’re so proud of their beliefs, let them openly say how they feel. The polite thing to do is to ignore stupid comments– but I don’t like the feeling like I’m being mocked by them, or looked down upon as a “white volunteer.” - It disgusts me that someone would even say that, or keep dividing these things up into race or gender.

Don’t they remember? Divided we fall.

I have good friends who live in West Virginia as well who are Obama supporters– and unfortunately for them, West Virginia is seen as a big racist state– the hillbillies coming down from their moonshine sheds to vote for the white candidate. Today is their primary… I’m hoping it won’t be like the media says, a landslide victory for her there. I think that wouldn’t amount to a victory for Clinton (she’s already lost the big game) but it would be a landslide victory for idiocy, racism, bigotry, ignorance… SNL would be right, Hillary would have the racist vote.

Maybe I’m just an optimist– but I’m really hoping the quiet, “un-polled” folks like my friends in West Virginia come out and surprise a lot of people today. Make this one close like Indiana. I’m hopeful of that. I guess I’m just hopeful in general. It’s been a good season for that.

The beauty of BEFORE COFFEE is that it sometimes is, just that. Where I’m a bit cranky in the mornings and my true feelings come out. Things I may have been biting my tongue about, just come spewing out… But I generally keep biting if it’s important to my livelihood.

- You know what’s been annoying me FOREVER, and this morning especially? Drunk Duck. We’ve been number 1 on their ever since Free Comic Book day, and I direct a TON of people there, or to herobynight.com — but then I had this kid do a book report on Hero By Night, and the teacher told me he wasn’t sure if he could send the kids to “my site” because of the content on Drunk Duck. — They pointed out some of the sexual comics there– even in the “top 10″ right now there’s a comic with big boobed furry chicks pressing boobs and it says so in the description…. and it’s not that I’m for censorship or anything like that– have a field day!– But they also mention the name “Drunk Duck”—  that crowd doesn’t want their kids visiting a site called DRUNK anything. — but there it is boldly across the top of my header every day… and I’m starting to ask, why? — Well we only hosted Hero By Night there because it fell into the same time that Platinum Studios has acquired them, so it made sense to co-brand– but I can’t shake off the feeling that we could have done much better ad sales wise, merch wise, pageview wise, out on our own—  Instead I get the comments like I mentioned here– and I get them OFTEN. — I bite my tongue usually because I frankly like all the people who run Drunk Duck and I don’t want to criticize it. But it’s just god awful branding and design and marketing… — I’ve also always said– why not, in some of that dead space under the fold, show the latest comic books for sale, with a direct buy link or… or this… or that… but it’s a lost cause to even bring that crap up. I’m not sure what it’s actually accomplishing now. I’m not sure that i really care anymore either. I might just put it all back on it’s own domain to do what’s best for HBN.

- WEATHER WARS! - The following is possibly fictional paranoia , but something you should consider. Have you noticed the back and forth between severe weather here in the USA and over in China? Fires and tornadoes here, cyclones and earthquakes there. It’s almost seemed like back and forth the past couple weeks, with death tolls mounting. The WEATHER is the perfect WEAPON. Why? Because nobody believes that you CAN control it. Walk outside and say that the government controls the weather and people will say you’re crazy. If you’re a government and say that another country is hitting you with cyclones, they’ll think the whole country is crazy. But it’s true– they can do it.  Those that believe “Only god can control the weather” — should ask themselves why the United Nations, way back in 1978 had a signed treaty regarding Weather Control Weapons– the cover letter wrote:

“CONVENTION ON THE PROHIBITION OF MILITARY OR ANY OTHER HOSTILE USE OF ENVIRONMENTAL MODIFICATION TECHNIQUES APPROVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED NATIONS ON 10 DECEMBER 1976″

My friends though, still think I’m just an insane conspiracy theorist. They must ignore headlines like “CHINA TO USE WEATHER CONTROL AT OLYMPICS”

And it’s been quietly working. If you take a look at the economic problems caused by the longterm “drought” in the USA, crops being destroyed, Hurricanes nearly wiping out the entire gulf coast– all done quietly. — And notice the weakness of the US dollar, and articles about how the growth of our dollar will be decided by Riyadh and Beijing

Anyways– I’ve been reading “between the lines” a lot lately. It’s the only way you can get to the TRUTH.

The weather outside here is dreary. My grass is growing at an uncomfortable rate and needs mowed. I believe this to be the work of mad scientists in the South Pacific, intent on annoying me with physical labor in the yard on days when they know I’ll be working my butt off inside.

I’ve done an interview with HEAVYINK.com - read it here.

What’s better is, anyone who wants to order actual Hero By Night books, they have all of our books at 20% off and FREE SHIPPING! — And you can subscribe to our future titles directly on their site, RIGHT HERE.

I’m also running a promotion with them where anyone who subscribes to our ongoing series through their service will get a custom sketch card. Go check it all out. Heavy Ink is friggin awesome!

I DO!

11 years ago my friend Bob lent me his suit jacket because I didn’t have one. It was a little big on me and I don’t like wearing suits, mind you, but it was an important day. I married my wife.

While we didn’t have an elaborate big shindig, mostly because of my own fault in not wanting other people to control my life, I do vividly remember the day– the flower in her hair, the sunshine coming out on a rainy day when we walked outside. I remember the the somewhat small moment of panic that set in when I looked down at her belly that was about to burst like something from ALIEN thinking… “Oh my god… I’m gonna be someone’s parent in a month.”

And here we are 11 years later, officially. Not too shabby!

I have to admit to you, dear blog readers, that I do feel a bit of a failure this morning. Sure I’ve got a bit of “success” drawing some comics, and I can’t complain about that– but I don’t feel “secure.” — I don’t think I ever have, or will. There is no retirement plan for me– the retirement plan is… “draw comics until you’re dead.” — Which would be just fine if there were only ME to consider in the equation. So I work very hard, sometimes 9-9 or beyond to make ends meet here. And I’m lucky– for a long time I wasn’t able to do that. — Anyways– last night, this morning…. it just got me thinking that maybe while I work in comics, I should be looking for something BIGGER… something to bring myself and family some REAL “security”. — Comics ain’t it, and that’s mostly why I feel like I’ve failed in some way. But I haven’t quit, and at least I have my eye on that prize now.

_______

I’ve been told that I’m the coolest Dad EVER after letting my son speak with Brer Rabbit from the Flobots on the phone. You may have never heard of the Flobots yet, but you will very soon. Around these parts though the past couple weeks, Flobots are a “very big thing” as they’ve become my son’s favorite band, and dare I even say it? My favorite band? Well, okay…. next to Pearl Jam. A dream concert for me would be Flobots opening up for Pearl Jam, and Mike McCready coming out to bust out some solo or rhythm with the ‘Bots. But yeah, I guess I’m a HERO now to my kid. Thanks, Brer Rabbit!

——-

I DO!

Inking continues here…. almost mindlessly. I enjoy it though in some therapeutic way. I keeps my mind off the bills that are coming due and the pressures of the outside world. It also keeps my mind off the fact that 500,000 people, HALF A MILLION people could be dead in Burma, and that oil is now a record breaking 126 a barrel….. I’m kinda sick of “keeping my mind off” of it though, which is why….

———

I DO!

Top Secret Side Project X continues…

I do… and do… and do… and do….

Dammit, I’m a DOER!

I got a call last night, and I’m officially working on something top secret on the side. It’s comics, SORT OF–  My main priority is Hero By Night though, and the top secret project will have to be done in my free time, or I’m going to have to work harder to MAKE time happen, or focus on SLOWING time with my mind.

Let me talk more about the top secret project that I don’t want to talk too much about…. well, for one, it feels like the universe sort of served this up, saying to me… THIS is what we’d like you to do with your tools. There’s no guarantee of any kind of money, which would be nice, and I’m probably insane for even thinking about putting something on the schedule that’s not paying upfront– but there’s a feeling that no matter what, it will be a project that will be WORTH it somehow. Maybe just getting important messages out and expanding my own sequential art muscles a bit. I’m pretty excited about it… I’ll probably be able to show or tell more within this month… actually it’s something I’d like to get launched for _CLASSIFIED_ before the month is over– it’s been bubbling around inside for a couple weeks now.

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary, 11 years. I’m married to an awesome woman, by the way, in almost every way. Don’t think for one second when I wake up and roll over and grab her butt that I’m not thanking the universe for popping us together.

Wow. It’s been a pretty awesome week at Hero By Night traffic wise, which I hope is turning into new regular readers. What started out as a record breaking couple of days, has turned into a record breaking week– and I can only think that we have Free Comic Book Day to thank for that. And not to mention there were a LOT of cool FCBD things out there, so for somebody to get to the end of our little ditty and see the url and then run to a comp to check it out— wow, that’s pretty humbling. This is perfect timing for us, because we have some fun fun things in the upcoming issues.

Back to the drawing board for me— it’s 9:30am and there’s a lot of stuff to do…