D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

Dropping a blog before work today. Clearing the mind…

So I’m in the middle, well, the first quarter actually of the CRUNCH of largest orders I had so far for Will Draw Anything. I’m not going to rush them, it’s just going to take a little longer for people to get their drawings. The best I could do was pop up a running tally of how many I have left to do for what days. These 189 order days are going to take some time, but I’m trying to carve out bigger chunks of time to do giant bunches of them. Why rush though? I have half the thought to actually STOP doing them when there are no orders left in the queue, and let people know that after I’ve gotten through the big number crunch. The smaller order days (10-15) will be easier to knock out.

To say I’ve been multitasking lately is an understatement. I’d say, super multitasking??? Ubertasking? All this and still having a busy family life. Yesterday I only did 7 or 8 Will Draws, but I also focused and the first two full pages of inked art and writing for the new Flobots Comic chapter, which takes a much different turn. I really really wanted to launch that on a M-F schedule, but for now it’ll likely be M-W-F, but I want to focus on sticking to that and making sure I don’t miss a day or have a way late update. I’ll be updating full pages instead of smaller tiers, I think it’s a bit more satisfying. Anyway, that engine is rolling, and I have plans to release the Flobots sketchcards SOOOooon… more on that later…. but yes… I’m multitasking…— Oh, and I forgot to mention I’m also the “web coordinator” for the Flobots now. Which means I do a bunch of ninja things behind the scenes.

While drawing, I’ve been listening to The Road, the novel by Cormac McCarthy, the same guy who wrote No Country for Old Men. I didn’t know that statement but for a couple days ago. I caught a link to an article about how this movie was filming in the bleakness of Pittsburgh, and I thought it was a remake of Lonewolf and Cub, so I checked it out… but as I dug deeper I learned it was by the same guy who did No Country and I was sold. I usually don’t like Audiobooks, but this one was read very well and easy to absorb and visualize. I probably would have not read things the way they were supposed to have come across, so I’m glad I listened for the first time. I’d be happy to actually read the book now, had I time to do so. But my ears aren’t doing much while my hands and eyes are working.

In 2001, I almost launched a webcomic called Rainy Day, which has been in the back of my mind forever. It was about a similarly bleak world, but unlike Cormac, I flat out said what caused the devistation of the earth, it was post-meteor strike world, about 200 years later. That world, the sun was still blocked out by the thick debris field in the atmosphere. Every day looked like a “Rainy Day”. And that bleakness was always in the back of my mind. I’ve talked about it before, but the reason I didn’t launch rainy day was, in the original comic, the narrator caption said that it was a meteor that struck earth on September 11th. I had to delay the launch of said strip until October, but on September 11th that year, we all know what happened. It gave me a very eery feeling back then, creepy. Suddenly the comic I thought would be so cool to draw, with obliterated cities and mass hysteria…. wasn’t so cool anymore. I think that genre has always been one of my favorites, and is always pecking at the back of my mind. Some day. Not today.

Agenda for today…. do some Will Draws as a warm up (the way intended!) then bust into page 3 of the new flobots chapter. If I can get colors going on these, I’ll launch it tomorrow and just stick to that schedule and have a SUPER busy week. One thing I will say, is that, so far, my experiment has worked… I’m drawing faster and with more confidence on the cintiq now.

I think I’ve shaken off that funk.