D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

“Model, Role Model, Roll some Models in blood… get some flesh to stick, so they’ll look like us. I shit and I stink, I’m real join the club. I’d stop to talk but I’m already in love.”

I think it just hit me. This feeling that I might be somebody else’s role model now. That scares me. Over the past month or so, I’ve gotten about 4 letters asking me on advice on drawing, and people who wanted to draw comics for a living some day. I just answered one a few minutes ago, where I pointed them to some awesome online links to tutorials on comics, etc. — Something I didn’t have in 1992-1994 when I was dreaming away. I didn’t have the internet to contact my favorite artists and ask them for advice. My path had me ditching school and hiding out in Anaheim around the old Image Comics offices there. I was lucky enough to get a peek behind the scenes by Danny Miki who invited me up to his office at Extreme Studios. — I thought– WOW, my foot is in the door! I’m gonna make it! — I was 16 I think?

But yeah–  it’s a weird feeling to have people asking me for advice now. I never really asked anyone else for advice, not even Danny Miki or people inside Image, I just sort of absorbed anything other artists would tell me, or I’d read the crash course pages each month in Wizard. This feeling MIGHT be what those guys felt when they had younger kids coming around with stars in their eyes. I mean, it’s a good feeling, it sort of makes you feel like there’s HOPE for this whole thing to continue on into new generations or something. Passing small torches on.

The reality is though, it’s hard. Really hard. There are guys I know of who have had great gigs with the big two who still have day jobs. Many creators at Image, still have day jobs. In certain deals, there are no page rates, like i believe even Image, you don’t get paid until like 2 months after a book hit shelves, and then the pay is split by the creative teams. And honestly, if a book isn’t selling over 10 or 15 k, there’s not much to split up at all– if you broke it down into page rates, you might be lucky to be making 20 bucks a page for art or something after profits come back in.  BUT there are other ways now… thank goodness.

So it makes me nervous to give advice to someone who wants to do this. I don’t even know I’d be encouraging my own kids to pursue a career in comics unless they were teens and they REALLY wanted to– I’d have to see the same passion I had though, or I’d be weary helping them. Well, they might actually have an edge with me as their Dad or something, because I can guide them away from major mistakes…. but still.

The advice I give out at comic conventions when someone brings a portfolio up now is– launch a webcomic! It’s free! Go to drunkduck.com and start getting your work and your name known– even if you think you suck, and you might totally SUCK. But go look at the majority of comics on the web– they all pretty much suck. That’s the beauty of it, it’s raw– it’s creation. If I would have had the web when I was in high school 91-94, You know I would have been publishing my stuff— Here’s an example… I’m not embarrased to show it now– but back in high school, I was doing THIS STUFF.  Now, If I took my hand stapled little comics, colored with colored pencils to San Diego Comicon looking for a publisher, I probably would have been politely laughed out of town….. but that quality (crap) of work, I could totally have begun to build my OWN fanbase around my work.

You know, pre-internet there… I WAS building my own fanbase of friends who enjoyed the “Scorpion League” stories I’d draw in class. I remember old friends like Wes Clark and John asking me “Do you have the new pages done yet!?”  because they couldn’t wait to see what was gonna happen in my crappy little story! It felt awesome too. And now that I’m thinking about this, I bring this up as an example of what publishing online is doing. Now it’s like you have those friends from around the GLOBE who are checking in each day to see what’s happening next. They can become fans of your stuff, just because you’re making it.

It’s amazing. It’s literally the FUTURE of comics.

Now, the big boys of comics publishing really haven’t quite figured out what many of the popular webcomic folks already know. I’m lucky here– There’s no Spider-Man or Batman “webcomic” — so in essence, Hero By Night IS really the #1 super hero webcomic out there numbers wise. It’s read by more people than read Batman’ s monthly comic book. And who knows, maybe when DC and MArvel get around to creating exclusive webcomics online, they can turn to some of the pros out here who really know this community and have been publishing online for over a decade. Wouldn’t a Batman written by Scott Kurtz be interesting?( Oh, wait– he’s already done that. Hah. )  — or maybe have R. Stevens from Diesel Sweeties writing an Iron Man comic? — Or what if some of the comics big boys, like Frank Miller or Brian Bendis wrote an official “webcomic” and had some known webcomic artist draw it and run it? It’s interesting…

I know that there’s been a clear dichotomy (trichotomy?) between all the forms of comics… it use to be just comic strips over here, comic books over there. But now, its sort of three… comic strips, webcomics, and comic books. But I’ve always just seen it ALL as COMICS.  Whether it’s a one or three panel gag strip, or an adventure serial, we’re all making comics. And that’s the real future of comics…. but I digress….

So, I’m somebody’s role model now. Somewhere out there. It freaks me out. Should I start acting differently now? I mean, if there’s a 12 year old kid wanting to learn to draw comics because he saw HBN and it inspired him, and he comes here and sees me ranting and raving– or finds Yirmumah… OH DEAR! — Well, I don’t think I’ll change… but just knowing that I’m somebody’s role model now… it feels like I’m already a bit more responsible for something now. Does that make any sense at all?

I don’t know why Pearl Jam lyrics come to my head when I think so deeply— but..

But remember… Eddie speaks the truth–  “it’s not all been said…been said and done…”

Man, am I grumpy this morning! I’m blaming it on lack of good sleep the past two nights. Last night I was up at 4am with the dog, and the night before 3am– then we wake at 7 anyway, and I feel like a brick. I am just in too grumpy of a mood to post really, afraid I might go off on a tangent on somebody’s ass– but I must remain calm… must…. imbibe … caffeine!

Yesterday I inked 3 pages. Wanted to do 4— I have 6 to go here. If I can keep my eyes from glossing over around 6pm today in need of a nap, I think I’m going to try to muscle through all 6 pages here. If not, it’ll be all done by the end of the weekend. Then I’ll have some formatting to do on Monday and Tuesday — and I THINK we’ll have this new issue in the can! Hot damn!

Jason Embury and myself have such a unique working deal here– it’s exciting to think we can take ANY idea from concept to finished product. It got me thinking a while ago that maybe we should get into this whole “sell concepts to hollywood thing.” — There was a whole article in the NY times dedicated to how our publisher pretty much sold a concept to movies without a book even being made! They have what they call “one sheets” that are pretty much an initial pitch sort of deal. So Jason and I might just start building our own damn “library” of concepts, sell them all off for 5 million dollars, and then retire. HAH!— I laugh, but it could be a real possibility. I know another, uhm, webcomics guy who I believe has optioned two of his comics that not a whole lot of people know about, and now he’s represented by a well known agency out there in LA LA land. — Like most creators I have 1000s of ideas… but I have about 8 of them that I know are GOLD. Hero By Night was one of those, by the way, that I pulled off that back burner.

I think I can remember quite clearly the moment where I matured as a “creator” and realized that not every idea I had was awesome or even good. Or even slightly good. In fact, I remember the moment where I was honest with myself and said– nope, this won’t work, this will never work, this one over here won’t fly— but there are these other ones that you KNOW are something. That’s something you can’t learn in some college course or weekend seminars, or book you read. I think that moment only comes after years and years of creating things, years and years of failing but going on and on. Hitting your head against the wall, and not quitting, like other people who quit because… well, hitting your head against that wall can hurt sometimes.

Ok.. I’ve been biting my tongue on this one, because I know I have a lot of friends who like her and all but… Hillary Clinton is a MONSTER. She is the epidemy  of everything that’s wrong with politics and our election system. She’s not CHANGE. When they said they were using the “kitchen sink” approach to dealing with Barack Obama, they sure meant it. Questioning his religion, when he openly said he was a Christian– and WHO CARES! This is America! Don’t they remember “freedom of religion” — those founding folks had “tolerance” figured out long before us. — then it was the outfit he wore that looked like “muslim” garb. When that didn’t work, it was “Obama’s gonna take you job away with more Nafta!” — and they floated a story Obama’s campaign was talking with Canada– and now it turns out it was the Clinton campaign all along!!!? How convenient for that story to run the day before the Ohio election. — then the “3am” ad… who will be prepared to answer a phone at 3am in the whitehouse?? UGH…. FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR…. The Clintons are running on what Bush ran on– taking a page right out of their book, but putting a Clintonian twist on it. Fear of inexperience.

And Americans seem to be lapping it up. Really– are they that dumb? I keep asking myself this… If I can see through these things, and MANY of the media pundits are clearly spelling it out too– do other people really not see what’s going on here?

And how conveniant is it now that Obama is ahead in delegates, there’s mathematically no way Clinton can catch up now– but they bring up Florida and Michigan, which broke the rules of elections by voting earlier than Feb 5— but now Clinton and her supporters want a “do over” there. — It’s clear to me… this MONSTER will do ANYTHING to win… even when she knows the math is against her. She is a monster. She’s even saying now that her and John McCain are qualified… she’s endorsing John McCain now over Obama? — It’s the type of behavior now that she’s showing, the smugness of… “well, if I’m not going to win, YOU’RE not either.” — she’s probably the type of person who upturns the board game when it’s not going her way. So she cheats… she steals…

If I were Obama– and I know he doesn’t want to play dirty pool, but if I were him, I’d be hitting back. She keeps bringing up things of the past… maybe Obama should bring up some of the skeletons in the Clinton closet? — But I commend him for being above the fray. He seems to be nailing her on why she hasnt released her tax records. She wouldn’t do that before the Ohio and Texas vote… I wonder why. She said she was “too busy” and cackled during that debate…. ARG! EVIL WITCH WOMAN!!! — it’s clear she’s hiding something. Some have eluded that most of her money has been given by “overseas” donors. People with interests…. It’s Haliburton type stuff all over again– this time not on our own soil even. If Ohioians would have known she’s taking money from people who benefited from NAFTA and want her to do MORE things that cost Americans jobs… I bet they would have seen through the foggy smoke that are the Clintons.

And the Republicans!? Oh man, they are LOVING this! I know because I’ve spoken with some who agree with all the crazy radio dudes like Limbaugh— they want Clinton to be the nominee against McCain the WORST way. McCain will clean her clock, and make her “experience” look like amateur hour.  McCain says he’ll wage a civil campaign, but he’ll be BLUNT. He’ll flat out say the things that Obama won’t right now. He’ll say, what exactly is your experience? That you were married to someone? That you kissed Arafat and his wife on a trip? Huh… go figure.  And frankly, I’d vote for McCain before Hillary.

But the Republicans DREAD the thought of going up against Obama. They are trying the FEAR card again, just with his middle name. That’s all they’ve got to fight him. FEAR. Fear of a name!? Obama will clean McCain’s clock in a general election, and in debates. Sure, he doesn’t have near as much experience as McCain… but McCain is not a movement. America needs to WAKE UP here. This could be the shot… this could be the one chance we’ll have for a long long time to come to REALLY change things.

—- I live South of Pittsburgh, and there’s a lot of underlying racism here. I hear the people who say they won’t vote for Barack because he’s black. It makes me sick. Especially coming out of mouths of people I thought were smarter than that. It has me fearing that he will lose Pennsylvania because of this– but even if he does, it doesn’t matter. But still, I’m ashamed of the sentiment when I hear it. It’s not everyone– but there are a GOOD majority of people around here who roll their eyes and think “Yeah, I’m gonna vote for black guy!?” — some come flat out and say it, some make an underhanded remark to test to see if  you’re of a similar mind. It makes you uncomfortable when you’re in that situation… someone you know, saying something like that. I usually just bite my tongue– but I’ve noticed that the last month or so, I’ve been speaking up to it– I give the people who say it a look of disappointment, and then I say “I’m disappointed to hear you say that.” — or I tell them I’m a bit shocked or saddened because I thought they had a broader, smarter mind. I’ll probably lose some friends over it, and possibly some extended family…. but frankly, I don’t mind. If that’s how they feel, I don’t need them around my kids or family.

And then there are the people i run into or hear about who say they’ve never voted. Fine, neither did I until a few years ago. My mother in law is one of those folks. She pretty much says she doesn’t vote because she feels like her vote doesn’t matter, and it’s sort of the “they’re all the same” mentality that affects a lot of non-voters. “Why bother?” — So I speak up when I hear my wife talking with her– It’s good that’s she’s never voted before, so why not come out and vote this time. Pennsylvania NEEDS this. Our country needs this. Step out of those apathetic shadows and cast a vote for someone you believe in. And if not that– if you feel that you still don’t believe in it– perhaps in my mother in laws case, I said– well then cast your vote for my kids. For my 10 year old who is rooting for Obama, but can’t vote yet. And he’s no dummy– that kid is a military expert. — I said in the background– If McCain wins– that could be 8 years of more WAR… My 10 year old will be 18 then…. maybe drafted. And if ANYONE knows that that can happen, it should be my mother in law’s generation. So vote for MY KIDS! Lend your vote to the future voters– please!

And that thought there gets me thinking… maybe I can convince some of these people– turn them around. They may not believe that every vote counts, but it’s true. If you’re living in this country, and you can’t feel a bit of what’s happening right now– you must be paralyzed. Get up and move!

Yesterday was pretty productive– I penciled two pages in the morning, then scanned the total of 9 pencils in (18 scans) and lettered them all and prepped them for inking. That’s the really tedious part I think– somehow in my mind I had envisioned inking a bunch yesterday too and I felt I let myself down, but then after having some Guinness while watching a dude on SciFi search for a Yeti, my output was way more than fine.I’ll be busting into inks this morning after coffee.

WOW-io… So the Hero By Night Wowio editions (free download issues) went up the other day, i had a small mention in the private blog and linked it on the regular update at herobynight.com, and in one day being live, we broked the top 10 downloaded comics. This morning we’re at #5. That’s pretty great. I haven’t really had the time to do up and banners for the site or send out a hero-gram about them either, so this is before the bonus promotional push by me. - I also have Yirmumah books on there if you search for them.

Speaking of Yirmumah… yeah, that bug has bit me again. It’s crazy to think. I told myself in my mind, if I could do 3 of those this week, maybe I could give it an honest shot, but that didn’t happen this week due to my deadlines and the amount of stuff I have to get done before Wizard World LA. HOWEVER… reading that article about the “1000 True Fans” thing, stuff that I already knew really and many other webcomic folks know, but it reignited those grassroot fires in my mind. I always considered the readers of Yirmumah as “friends”, for real. Many of them became good friends of mine in real life. Whatever it is that’s there IS special, and something that’s been a bit neglected. But the fans and friends understand– I had this awesome opportunity to actually make a decent living drawing comics, and Yirmumah was always that fuel to keep me going toward goals– it’s been with me now for 10 years! — But if I do bring it back, it will be all fan-funded I think in some manner, and I’d like to do things much differently, much more “transparent” so that everybody could feel and actually BE a part of it in some way. I have a plan… and even with that plan, I’d like the core readers to help develop it and have some say, then I’ll make the final decision. — Expect to hear more about that soon.

Oh! Hey! I just got an email from my old pal, Nate Piekos while I was typing this blawg…. turns out he has a new story up at Dark Horse Presents Online! It’s an awesome EC style story– me thinks Ol’ Nate has been sifting through his hardcover TFTCs! Hah! Check it out here.

A lot of successful webcomic creators already know this model well, and it’s aided me pretty well in the past.

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php 

I think I was thinking this way back in 2000, out of sheer necessity. So I love thinking about this more and more. It makes me want to relaunch something hardcore.

Penciled 7 pages yesterday. I have 2 page scene to do up this morning here, and the pencils on the issue are wrapped– then it’s a scanning and inking marathon the rest of the week. Hooray!

Wizard World Los Angeles is creeping up here, and I’m scheduled to be there signing and doing panels– but I’m kind of in a mini financial crunch here (like everyone else!) — I’m going to bend over backward to make it though since the folks at Platinum Studios are kindly taking care of me for the trip.  We’re also supposed to be filming a Comic Book Challenge video that friday. I’d hate to miss it, but I might not have a choice… working REAL hard on making it happen though.

Hey! Something pretty cool happened yesterday– Got a note from Dan @ Platinum, he said a kid wrote in a letter to their office, he drew a little “H” on the paper, but it didn’t show up on the scan.

I sent Trey a nice package today. And just in case you don’t know where to find Hero By Night’s journals… they’re over here. 

I have a ton of stuff to get accomplished today, but right off the bat, I wanted to let any readers know here, that the Hero By Night mini-series is FREE and available for download over at Wowio. Instead of giving you individual links, just try this search result link. I’ll be pimping that up a lot more when I get my deadline out of the way here.

Got taxes out of the way yesterday. I thought for sure I’d end up screwed and owing a bunch of stuff, but thanks to turbotax online, and their nifty deduction maximizer, it reminded me of things that I could be writing off, and some things I neglected to write off last year. So I’m safe! Lifesaver! — Man, I wish we had a flat tax system in this country.

You live in Ohio or Texas, Vermont or Rhode Island? Get your butt out and vote. No matter who you vote for (*cough* Obama) — remember that we need REAL change, not name dynasties.  I want to see an Obama vs McCain general election– I think it would be one of the most polite campaigns in history and actually talk about the issues instead of attacking someone’s religion or using fear of someone’s name or clothes they wore to not vote for them. That’s not an American thing to do at all. Can you feel it though? That energy that something good is going to happen soon. I guess that’s what they call HOPE.

Last night was one of those nights. If you’re an artist or creator of any kind, you probably know the types of nights. Where you know you should be sleeping, you lay down, lights out… and your brain won’t shut off. You begin thinking of things you’ll do the next day, planning, plotting. You think of plots and ideas, site layouts, promotional ideas… it goes on and on. I open an eye and see my clock is at 11:30pm, and in another wink it’s 12:30, and I’m still there thinking. Then the thoughts turn to, wow, I could have gotten something done in that hour. So I lay there thinking that… and finally I had enough. Up into the midnight hour I was off to work.

I went and did this, and then I was off to bed again around 3am.

Slept in a little bit, but still not much sleep total, but I’m up and about and ready to tackle a bunch of things today. I’ll be hitting the gym for an hour, then getting back here to work on some Hero By Night pages– I think I have about 10 pages to go here– this issue has 2 extra pages. I calculate that I would have been done with this issue Mid-February if I didn’t have to spend about 2 weeks on the Free Comic Book day issue, but that’s totally worth it, and we’re still on schedule here. We’re coming up on what’s going to be an exciting Spring for HBN– issue 3 is rocking and wraps that Simian arc up nice, but we have the the 99cent issue 4 coming up with the special metal ring for order in April, then the FCBD lands beginning of May– it’s going to be a nice push for our title here. It’s not easy being an indy superhero book out on the shelves, but we’re starting to feel a wave of momentum as people are catching on, realizing it’s not the average super hero fare. Bottom line, if you want a comic book that’s FUN again, and makes you smile and makes your mind wander a bit, escape from the world… you should buy Hero By Night.

Hey, our old yirmumah pal, Adam Black, is taking over the reigns on KISS 4K! After the issue 6 print book comes out, the title is going exclusively online and being a one man creative show by Mr. Black. And without meaning to diss the other creative teams, Adam Black is just going to RULE this thing. I’m not KISS fan at all, but I’ve really been enjoying Adam’s story and work there. It’s a bit easier to follow too. I hope he exlpains what “4K” means! Give it a shot– he draws awesome monsters and ladies.

That’s it for me… lots to draw and do today.

Here’s a look at a page of inks I just finished. I love inking on the Cintiq. — Back the drawing board!