D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

So I’m in the ol’ office busting out some inks on webcomic strips for Hero By Night this morning. This afternoon I have to go to a surprise party for my father in law. Don’t worry, I didn’t ruin the surprise because he’s an old school, tough as nails railroader guy who won’t go near a computer. And I doubt he has google alerts or twitter set to send messages to his phone.

Yesterday I had a great conversation with Sean O’Reilly, the new publisher at Platinum Studios. It was refreshing, because honestly it was like talking to a clone of myself. He knows what’s up, that’s probably the only way I could put it. I’ll be honest, I was a little weary of a new guy coming on board who is also running another comic company and didn’t know how that would work, or I was worried maybe it would be a conflict of interest in some ways. But I can sense the guy is dedicated to doing the right thing for Platinum and for Hero By Night, which in turn is amazingly awesome for me. I never really stop to think how awesome things are right now… a week or so ago I did a radio interview with a new show called “Geek Nation” and the host said something like that… if he could go back two years ago and tell me I’d be producing an ongoing, acclaimed super hero series, what would I say? I don’t know what I would have said… but right now, I’m thinking along the lines of… life is awesome at the moment.

One thing about Sean that juiced me up… he GETS my plan I’ve been talking about for years now. Maybe because he’s been a school teacher (I think?) at some point, but I’ve been wanting to reach a NEW generation of kids with Hero By Night. Give the new generation of kids a new super hero icon of their own… when they’re 14 or 16 and think “super hero” I want them to think HERO BY NIGHT. And guess what? We have a way to do it and we’re working on it as we speak. It’s pretty exciting stuff.

It’s no offense to the current super hero icons out there. It’s not like I wouldn’t love to draw or write Batman or Spider-Man or something… but honestly, Jack Kirby is telling me that we need something NEW. So that’s what I’ve been focusing on in my work here. If anyone read my old blog posts on the other blogs, when I was writing and creating Hero By Night, I was trying to instill something CLASSIC in it, a classic origin…something EVERYONE gets. And we did it.  My other friend says “WE??” it was all YOU. Well I just don’t think that way. If it had just been ME creating Hero By Night on my own and putting it online and doing all the coloring and writing and promotion myself, it wouldn’t have gone as far as it has. It was an alchemic recipe of its own….  The stars aligned with Comic Book Challenge, winning that… finding my old inker friend was now an amazing colorist with the speed and passion to produce– Platinum’s backing, plus allowing me to fully pursue my complete vision for this project… and now it’s a continuing build on this recipe as I bring on another old friend and great writer, James Patrick, who is helping to write out all the crazy plots in my head and make them into a cohesive thing. So when I say “WE” i mean everyone who had a part in making HBN happen, including the people who voted for it in the CBC.

Alright– enough mind-dumping. I have stuff to ink, then an inlaw party to go to. Wee-hoo!