D.J. Coffman – Sequential Artist, Thinker

It’s very strange how i seem to have been able to get TONS more work done while a whole bunch of drama has broken out since Sunday. Sigh.

UPDATE HERE: I just received a cease and desist letter from Platinum about using the HeroBynight.com, and HeroByNight.net addresses that I’d bought and hosted for the past two years. I did have them pointing to my djcoffman.com site, after I stopped receiving payments on time, and didn’t want the money I had spent to advertise on places like Comic BOok Resources to go promoting the project that was dead in the water. I’m putting it all back the way it was now, or just putting the URLS up for transfer to them, no problem.

I was just writing up a pretty detailed and opinionated blog here, commenting on the recent Publishers Weekly Article about Platinum Studios clear and present financial troubles, and Platinum posting their part of the full interview on their new “Platinum blog” - I caught a link on the Hero By Night page quoting on there just how much money they say I’ve made in the past 20 months and how much money they SAY they put into Hero By Night…. Some of it is totally true, but I’d like to ask anyone out there that knows comics, did you ever once see an AD for Hero By Night in any other trade magazines, at shows? Anything? The only advertising they did for the Hero By Night comic book was the listing in Previews. That’s it. I saw on a balance sheet they hurriedly threw together a line that said “24,000″ for “marketing” costs, and immediately had asked what that was for??! 24k? Nobody really knew, but different people said they assumed it was for the “Free Comic Book Day” issue… which might I add would have been for Gunplay and Comic Book Challenge… so it was odd to see that listed on a sheet as an expense for Hero By Night alone, but I know companies do this all the time to really pile on the “costs”—

But man, what I could have done with 24k in marketing money. UGH… it hurts my brain a little to think about it. One time I had asked for like, 500 bucks extra to buy some ads around on some different comic sites. I was told that it wasn’t worth it to advertise on Newsarama, or Comic Book Resources. But from my own marketing and branding background, to me, I thought, well I want logo where the target audience can see it. So, I actually bucked up and started spending some of my OWN money to advertise for Hero By Night, and our website pageviews went up because of it. — That balance sheet also said something to the effect of they only made 800 bucks in Ad money from the site. I shook my head, flabbergasted, because i know how much money other webcomics have made, or even I had made ni the past. It occured to me, and I asked, that maybe someone was fudging numbers, or just not using the RIGHT ad networks… hell, we could have made more money than that off of well placed and desiged GOOGLE ads. — I made more off of googleads sitting on an old archive with half the traffic I was bringing in. …  I won’t even get into the convention aspect. While we DID go around to a lot of shows in the “Drunk DUck” section they bought up of Artists Alleys at Wizard world shows, there were times we had dinners that could have paid for an entire publisher booth and been taken more seriously. When I asked about San Diego Comicon, or setting up there, I got the feeling from everyone that it would just be a “huge pain in the ass.” and not worth the work. The biggest comic show in the world….. and they’re not present inside? Now, with COmic Book Challenge going on down the street the past two years, fine, I could understand that, but again… 24k in marketing?? Where? Why?

So yeah, that boggles my mind. 24k? Brian just passes me off as any creator who would complain to a publisher about not enough promotion. But the guy’s problem is, and he admitted this to me is, he just doesn’t KNOW comics. For all intents and purposes, and not a surprise to many, Platinum isn’t in the comic BOOK business.

This was another private reason I flew off the handle like I did back in late May and June. It was only in APRIL right before the Pittsburgh Comicon that Brian Altounian and Scott Rosenberg had called me on the phone, very excited, offering me a position IN the company. A big position, one that they’d be willing to move my entire family out for, relocation… I’d of been in charge of a lot of things and righting the ship on marketing, branding, and making money with their digital side of things. They figured I had been yammering in private “consulting” with them in what was wrong and HOW EASY it was to fix all these things. Many of the ideas I brought to the table became winning things for them behind the scenes. How easy it was to post a blog on your site listing what books you have comign out, offering Previews up, just very basic comic book and webcomic marketing things. I was ecstatic at this offer, and nervous as all hell. But I did believe that THIS could have been a real chance for me to get out there with boots on the ground and FIX things internally and change the perception out there…  That was a BIG life changing decision…. but I was confident I could easily do this job for ANY comic or entertainment company that was as serious as I was about the effort…

2 weeks after that, my checks stopped coming on time. I was told there was “no money” to pay anyone. When I asked what was up with our print schedule, no word… nothing. Imagine how incredibly frustrating it must have been to one day be offered some big wig job, then very shortly after, not know if you’ll be able to pay your bills on time. That was a big factor in me going public… and forget about my own disgruntledness, imagine how pissed MY WIFE was about all of this? I mean, that is some serious business there to go through. Instead, all I got was no communication with Platinum after the first Rich Johnston column came out. Nothing but the one email telling me they had changed their mind about the print and web rights because I talked.

And so now, that brings it all up to date.

I had one question for Platinum Studios though… if they accuse me of releasing inside information in my second contract, which they then indeed terminated me from, — but in their article they just published, and that employees went over to the HBN fan page and repeated just how much money they say they spent on Hero By Night, AND how much money they say they paid me in the past 20 months…. isn’t that confidential information, and doesn’t that then break their FIRST original Comic Book Challenge contract with me? I mean, I know they’re mad that I rained on their bullshit tea party, but let’s all use our brains a little here. What was the point of that? To say …. “Hey guys, DJ made money, he shouldn’t be angry.”

Yeah… seriously messed up business ethics going on out there. I use to wish they would FIX this, but I’m afraid it’s only gotten worse.