D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

Not much has changed since yesterday’s post. I’ve put myself in a contained limbo where I’m working on other things to keep my mind off other things– so far it’s working.

YO JOE! - I see in comics news G.I. JOE has officially landed at IDW — That’s awesome. I wish I could have a stab at working on something for that. Long time friends of mine know that the first comics I bought were GI JOE, and that’s when I remember having that epiphany moment of “wow, someone draws these!” — The GI JOe franchise, I owe a lot to as far as helping me spawn my own creativity– taking the toys, renaming them, making my own “movies” or stories with my friends. Those are STILL to this day some of my best childhood memories. — I’m sure they have “big” names on it and would just laugh if I ever sent something in.

Flobots - June is going to be the month where you’ll see a lot of what I’ve been working on behind the scenes. One thing that struck me though working with these guys, is how awesomely organized their plans are and laid out on a schedule for some things… I think maybe I should do something similar for random ideas and plans I’ve had in my head to just better organize them so they’re not forgotten or put off. I can’t say much more about anything, just that they rock…. oh, and for the second time in this decade, some design work I did might end up going that quickly and could end up on Jay Leno on June 5th. The last time this happened was when I did the logo for Movie Poop Shoot and Kevin Smith wore it on Leno. Hopefully we can get what it is on time though– that’s pretty awesome– My DVR is set to record that

I’ve actually learned some new things in Photoshop in the past few days, just mucking around with tools and filters that I don’t usually use. It’s been a lot of fun. I’ve been missing out on simple pattern overlays on layers– UGH, I use to accomplish the same thing with many more detailed steps, I could kick myself now– I spent some time making my own textures and custom patterns to use in some upcoming stuff. It’s a lot of nerdy fun.

An odd occurrence last night as I woke up at 2:22, 3:33, 4:44 and 5:55 am. — The dog was stirring around, upset stomach I think from getting into our garbage yesterday. He ate an entire bag of freezer burnt pierogies we had thrown out– he had gotten sick previously in the day with those, but his belly was making weird noises all day and night. I hope he didn’t eat something else he should have.

So, I’m a zombie this morning– but it’s all good. I’m off to work on some top secret stuff of a grassroots nature.

Our brains have some sort of internal time clock ticking away in it, once you’ve synced yourself to a clock. I know people who can wake up every morning without an alarm, I use to be that way too– And I knew an autistic kid in highschool who could not only tell you the exact time and second and begin counting, but could also tell you the exact temperature. He’d also tell people what year they’d die– but I digress. I just want to kick whatever internal part of me decided it would be super funny to have me wake up and look at the clock every hour on the hour at those exact times. It’s the same thing that triggers me out of the blue to look at a clock when it’s on the 13th minute, while my brain is covering it up by making me think I just want to know what time it is.

Tick, tick, tick…

Hoping to hear back on some business things today– trying to get some things hammered out for the future. Everything seems to change day to day– some days I get angry, some days depressed, some days hopeful– but I’ve learned a valuable lesson or two to take away from everything and apply it to the future. I guess that’s at least something.

Off to the drawing board I roll…

Dont let it kill you baby, dont let it get to you
Dont let em kill you baby, dont let em get to you
I’ll be your breathin heart, I’ll be your cryin fool
Dont let this go to far, dont let it get to you

I can’t remember a time in my life where I was more energized and excited about the future–but completely nervous as all hell at the same time.

First the nervous part— My finances have been, well, to put it bluntly, completely jacked up the past month. My pay didn’t come on time as expected, not sure when it’s going to come although I’m sure it will at some point– but it’s lead me to make some pretty tough decisions personally and professionally here. My production schedule has pretty much been boned here, and it’s out of my hands now.  I can’t sit living off my savings and watching it dwindle down to nothing. My wife is back out now on job interviews, thank god for that stability, although I’d rather her not work and stay home with the kids– but this isn’t the 1950s I guess. People are often shocked when I say my wife hasn’t been working. Checked the mail… the closest thing to money was one of those “pre approved $5500″ loans offers from CitiFinacial. It was the first time I was actually tempted to call and take it…. but I’m smarter than that.

The exciting part though– I feel like I might have found something that was missing from my life, and a way to channel that inner rebelliousness that’s been there all along. I use to do it through satire– but now I think I might have put the pieces together in a way where, by god, it could actually make a DIFFERENCE out in the world. At least once or twice a week I get emails from people saying how my work has inspired them to go on with their own art and comics work, or peruse their dreams— and that feels pretty great– but now I’m thinking of expanding that to life in general. The idea that someone might read a story I’ve done and just not want to give up on life. To know they aren’t alone in their situation and that others have pulled out of it. TO hang in there! — Channeling my inner “Ben Franklin” as well, with some powerful imagery and counter propaganda. Finding these people of a similar mindset seems like a bit like the fickle finger of fate brought us together in some way. —

I’ll be able to show off some new stuff I’ve been working on real soon. Until then though, it’s back to the drawing board and the waiting games. The waiting is the hardest part.

Here’s a Flobots sketch from the new sketchbook… the band doesn’t actually appear in the comics (yet), but I wanted to draw them anyway to practice and I have a few things planned for a surprise.

Check out FloBots.com for the latest, or over on their myspace page to listen to some tunes. I think they’ll be on Jay Leno on June 5th as well–  www.myspace.com/flobots

I’m more and more forgetting to blog daily… I’ve been doing more sketching and having fun experimenting with my time that has opened up.

- Wow– it seems like every bit of conversation I have with the Flobots gets better and better. I can’t get into specifics, but there’s a MUCH bigger picture they have their eye on and they want me to be a part of it– I’m pretty humbled by that. It almost feels like I might have found my calling. We’ll see. It also feels like something like I did with ORIGINS might have been good practice for stories that are brewing in my head that I want to tell. Other people’s stories.

- Saw Indiana Jones with the family on Friday. Yeah, there were some parts that were way corny. But my kids loved it. I guess looking back you could say it was fun… but I’m nostalgic I think for that magic that I remember in Crusade and Raiders. Not so much in Temple. — Still, when Indiana Jones comes out, you HAVE to go see it… it’s like Nerd Church. Same goes for Star Wars or any comic book movies…. although I think I’m skipping the HULK– besides Ed Norton, it’s looking pretty bad. Batman soon though… that’ll rock.

- This is the part I skip, because I’m still not sure how to exactly phrase something or the way I’m feeling right now. I guess I’ve settled on the fact that I’m feeling a bit let down lately though. You can’t sit around and worry about it though, it won’t solve anything. In the end, honesty will be the best policy.

- Off to eat grilled meats at the in-laws. I still wish I could stop eating meat… I’ve tried, but my body and mind end up hating me.

Morning, World! Today is going to be a fantastic day, where awesome things are going to happen behind the scenes! (positive thinking, positive thinking, positive thinking!)

Random thoughts kinda morning as I’m focused on working on stuff and can’t blabber too much… here we go… before coffee…

– I feel like a stalker or something, studying photo reference to memorize the face shapes of the Flobots band members. I realized if anyone were to walk in my office and see my photoshop file with a bunch of screengrabs, someone would think I was compiling some sort of shrine or something. So far, they won’t actually appear in the comic as band members or anything, but in case that happens– but I was actually going to do up something nice for them anyway.

– You ever have heavy things on your mind but you don’t know how to put them gracefully? That’s where I’m at with a lot of things right now. When I figure out how to say what I want to say, I’ll let the world know.

– Politics…. is it over yet? I heard my wife laughing about a bumper sticker she saw online that said… “If you thought you’d rather die than see a black president, now would be a good time!” — Hahahaha. Seriously– I’m feeling good to be an American lately. Note to the world… Change is coming soon.

– A lot of newspaper cartoonists are still bitter over the “web” guys.  I stumbled across an article the other day about how the How to Make Webcomics has sold out– but there were snarky asshats from newspaper syndication tossing around passive aggressive comments. Well, they’re still on a sinking ship. It must really bug them to see the success of something like that. Hell, listening to part of Webcomics Weekly, I think I heard Scott Kurtz even say he was surprised that a book about the process was more well taken than his other actual books. It’s funny how a lot of webcomic guys learned to grow up pretty fast, set aside petty differences or arguments, roll up their sleeves and GET TO WORK— the print syndicated cartoonists could learn an awful lot from TEAM WEBCOMICS.

– John McCain might be a zombie. With a zombie army ready to take over and invade Vietnam for some sort of revenge or something. Just sayin.

Forgot to blog this morning. Not that it’s required–  it just slipped my mind. I was actually pretty stoked to wake up and jump right into work on some stuff for the Flobots comics, and some conceptual stuff.

Speaking of Flobots, I was officially given the number Flobot-13 by Jonny 5 of the Flobots yesterday. I’m not letting anyone take that from me– you’ll have to fight me for it!

As I’ve worked today, my thoughts have wondered away from thoughts about just drawing comics… but the idea that I might be able to draw comics that can actually educate, inspire… I might have the real opportunity available to get that accomplished now. I’m not sure exactly how I’ll make money doing it, but it’s something i can say I actually want to do. I think a goal of mine is to actually be able to do just that full time.

Someone told me recently that I should think about just going all out and drawing big boobed sexy chick books, but I just can’t bring myself to that. I don’t want that to seem like I’m looking down on that stuff of the people who do those types of books— but for me personally, I think I want to create things and leave things behind that make people think, get great reviews— that’s more important to me than making a quick buck.  Hero By Night might not sell a bajillion copies (no comic does anymore sadly) but there’s an underlying positive message in it, about choices… it’s not JUST a super hero book. — But now I’m getting back to thinking– I don’t have to disguise these stories as other things. I seem to have a knack for just telling these stories straight up…. and that’s an exciting thought for the future.

I’m sort of swimming in the unknown right now.

Thought I’d let the cat out of the bag here about “top secret project X” - I’ve had a lot of people asking what it was and what I was up to– and I’m not sure why it was kept a secret in the first place, just that I wanted to make sure it was go– and since we’re ALMOST go, here it is.

Yup. I’m doing a FLOBOTS comic. Readers here know I’ve been yammering on about the Flobots since I first discovered their music back in April… the comic won’t be launching JUST yet, but let me talk a little more about how it came together and what the goal is here, what it’ll be about, etc… this might take a moment as I ramble…

This whole entire year, I’ve felt pretty politically charged up. Back in January, I heard that Speech from Obama in Iowa, and the ones that followed… it gave me JUICE. Hearing lines. I felt like FINALLY someone is coming in and talking about real change– things I’ve thought about in my own head that I wish would be said out loud, this guy was speaking them. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” — I was so inspired, I drew a little sketch of Obama one morning in January– I laughed to myself and said, some day I’ll meet him and he’ll sign this.– In March, that happened. I’d get to meet Senator Obama only about 20 minutes from my house. He signed the sketch and thanked me for drawing his ears smaller.

After I started openly supporting Obama in my area (southwestern Pennsylvania) I began coming face to face with closeted bigotry and racism– sometimes from people I actually care or cared about. It was sort of a wakeup call to action. That’s when I painted the Obama “vote for change” sign for my yard before the Pennsylvania primaries. - This was right around the time I discovered the Flobots online and downloaded their album, and it chimed right in with how I was feeling. When I was away at New York Comicon, my wife let me know the sign had been stolen and she had been scared that somebody might come back and do more damage to the yard— I was a little scared, but furious. –Instead of sitting down and letting someone get away with that, I painted ANOTHER sign and put it out, because I felt like no matter what, I wasn’t going to allow somebody else to smother my freedom of speech and expression on my own property or anywhere.

That same week I was fired up, I emailed the Flobots because I was thinking a lot about the social messages in their music and how well it was put together– I wanted to know if they’d be down for a webcomic of some kind or graphic novel. I never expected a reply…. but they indeed replied right away.

To my surprise, not only would they be down, but they had actually heard of my work and read Hero By Night before as well. We shared ideas through email about what we could accomplish with a webcomic or something bigger. The idea of somehow involving the community, or inspiring others to activate in their community— I shared my story about the Obama signs with Flobots member, Brer Rabbit– I kinda told him my frustration and how “I would have painted 1000 signs if you know what I mean.” — His response was…

Let’s paint those signs!
This is the time, man.

This lead to some deep phone conversations with Brer Rabbit about comics, politics– It was pretty clear that these guys had a real love and passion for comics too. My goal is to be able to do with my sequential art, what Flobots are doing with their music. Communicating ideas…. activating minds. They forsee a much bigger picture than JUST music, they see it all as art and creativity– Making people think… inspiring people to stand for change. The kind of revolution they propose isn’t one that involves violence or storming the White House, it’s about being creative and sharing stories with one another– fighting with TOOLS– they have their music, my tools will be the comics– but it’s the same ammunition we’ll be firing.

They actually have a great non-profit group being setup, Flobots.org which can be read more about here.

All along, I had no real idea just how BIG Flobots were blowing up, and are currently in the process of blowing up even more. I’m pretty humbled to even be working with them on this project, and the fact that they’re pumped up by what I’ve shown them so far. I want to launch it as soon as possible here, but there are still a few kinks to hammer out– But definitly stay tuned here on my blog, and you’ll know when it happens because I’ll be yelling it from the rooftops. Things are happening pretty rapidly all around.

All I can say is… it’s pretty amazing how this all came together. I’m pretty stoked.

To prime yourself, go checkout Flobots.com - Buy their album (7.99 at Best Buy!) and LISTEN to their lyrics and enjoy.

One of the best albums I’ve heard in a long long time, FLOBOTS: FIght with Tools- is officially out today in stores. 7.99 at Best Buy– I’m going to pick up a few copies today because it’s so bad ass.

Anyway, I have nothing else to do today besides go and do this, and then come home and work on top secret project X.

I think I’m officially looking for another job now. If you’re in need of comic art of any kind, possibly webcomics, drop me a line. No I can’t do pro-bono work or backend deals or collaborations. I’m a gun for hire. Got bills to pay. Contact me for rates and such.

Kids didn’t have school today. I slept in. Now I’m up and working away on Top Secret Project X and other things.

I’ve been in and out of sour moods the past week. A lot of friends have asked what’s wrong, etc… and I’ve kept it pretty vague and I’m sorry about that— But in clear transparency, it’s Mostly based on the fact that I’m, uh, pretty much BROKE and waiting on pay to come, which hasn’t come yet for vaguely unknown reasons. I’m sure it will all be okay, but in the meantime, there are bills to pay and such. I’ve been struck with a mini panic that I should be doing something else, possibly looking for a job or starting to do commissions (caricatures) or something to earn some side safety cash. But yeah, things are pretty friggin unstable right now all around, but not to worry….

You’d think that would make someone really on the edge or nervous. Sometimes it can be downright depressing– but there are big moments where I just like to embrace the unknown. When you struggle against the current of where the universe is taking you it often brings you more problems. It’s always best to just go with the flow and not worry too much about where it’s taking you.

You kinda HAVE to think that way if you’re going to remain creative during tough times. I think of it almost like a test or something. Discipline!

All that being said…. I hope the mail delivers my check THIS week or there’s going to be a fucking meltdown of some kind that I won’t be able to keep under control because it will be out of my hands entirely. Literally. Vague enough for you?

______________________other items on the brain….

Oh! Flobots are on Carson Daly tonight… record that or watch it live. I’m planning on driving to Cincinnati on June 2 to meet them in person and talk about some awesome things that can change the world– can’t wait.  Their album officially drops in stores tomorrow– BUY IT! Listen to it a 1000 times. I have.

COMICPRESS 2.5 and more! - Comicpress is an awesome wordpress theme created by Tyler Martin for publishing webcomics that just got awesomer with the release of 2.5– now there are more layouts, more features, etc. And there’s a cool plugin that goes along with it called Comicpress Manager which makes launching your own webcomic 10 times easier. Maybe 100 times? — Seriously, I was mucking with this last night on another TOP SECRET site and it made me want to launch like 5 comics. It also makes it easy for you to take bulk archives and upload them to wordpress— great for moving those big archives around!

BOOM BLOX - is an addicting game for the Wii. I bought it actually for my wife and I to compete and play, but the whole family loves it, fights over it… and for some reason, time really goes by fast when you’re on it. 2 hours melt away.  Which isn’t so good when you have work to do.

I’m still selling Hero By Night rings– if you want one for your collection, you’d probably better buy one this week or next because if I don’t get enough orders for the batch, I don’t think I’ll be making extras or a second run. So this is extremely limited. See here for details.