D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

My latest shirt design. “McFear” Click the image to go buy a t-shirt.

Been working long hours behind the scenes. I think I’m proud of what I’m doing, but it’s the first time I was actually troubled while drawing something too. I’ve been listening to a lot of other people’s stories and trying to use my imagination to really put myself in those roles in my mind. When I do that, the characters all seem to talk with voices I don’t think I could have ever really imagined. They’re just there. When you stumble across that feeling when you’re working, it’s a rush. It’s almost as if you’re reading a good book that you can’t put down. I wonder if any of my other writer friends have thought about this much. It seems magical when it’s happening, but what is it really? The brain slowly collecting information, conversations, soaking the world up like a sponge, and you don’t even know it’s there. Then, one day.

I still, apparently, have some sort of pinched nerve in my back. My back doesn’t hurt at all, but my legs get tingly at times, toes, feet. It’s annoying. I’m 99.999 % sure it’s a “crink” of some kind, and no, I’m not going to go see a doctor. #1 I don’t have health insurance for myself because, well, I’m a poor cartoonist! #2 I reckon that when they run “tests” they’ll try to find a zillion other things wrong with you. Plus, my wife is nurse, so I use her as sort of a litmus test of diagnosis. That and the internet…. speaking of which, I promised myself I would do stretches before work and blogging… I did not. Pause for that… searching for back stretching routine online…

And we’re BACK. It’s really hard to remember to do the small things. I also threw in a “fanny firmer” stretch, because I want to keep my ass looking great for my wife.

I’ve had a lot of time to think and ponder the craft of comics lately. I have very mixed feelings about the exploitation of comic books. On one hand, I know it can bring more exposure to the comics medium, but on the other hand I think it might be ultimately hurting the comics medium. That’s the craft part though I guess creeping in on me, I start to become a sequential art purist in thinking about the things you can ONLY do on a page. And how amazing it really is that… you are your own special effects department. Even the BEST CGI effects out there can’t seem to get human emotions correct, or natural lighting. General audiences might not be looking that hard, but artists find it abysmal. Actors deliver terrible lines and suits line up to make changes to plots and devices. It could take a few days and millions of dollars to film one small scene where nothing much important happens, and for some reason, you needed 25 off camera people to make it all happen. Then there are union rules this and that… but here in my studio, and studios like it throughout time and space, it’s just US. We can do all of that in a day or three, for the budget of art supplies and food to sustain us. Taco Bell?So yes.. when I hear the phrases “exploitation phase” or “exploiting comic books” now, different things wander through my mind.

Comics only need to MOVE or make sounds in one place… the reader’s mind. Period. And frankly, in my humble opinion, that’s much much better than any movie or animation out there.

Maybe Mr. O’Shaughnessy said it best in his poem, ODE.

     We are the music-makers,
     And we are the dreamers of dreams,
     Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
     And sitting by desolate streams;
     World-losers and world-forsakers,
     On whom the pale moon gleams:
     Yet we are the movers and shakers
     Of the world for ever, it seems.

     With wonderful deathless ditties
     We build up the world's great cities,
     And out of a fabulous story
     We fashion an empire's glory:
     One man with a dream, at pleasure,
     Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
     And three with a new song's measure
     Can trample an empire down.

     We, in the ages lying
     In the buried past of the earth,
     Built Nineveh with our sighing,
     And Babel itself with our mirth;
     And o'erthrew them with prophesying
     To the old of the new world's worth;
     For each age is a dream that is dying,
     Or one that is coming to birth.

Ode - Arthur O'Shaughnessy

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.

You wish you had moves like this…

Find more videos like this on Fight With Tools

Still radio silence from me pretty much… here’s one of my favorite songs by the F.L.O.B.O.T.S, live from the 9:30 club on Sunday. I love at the end, the crowd just starts chanting on it’s own “Fight with, fight with, fight with tools.”

Flobots - We Are Winning from D.J. Coffman on Vimeo.

Rise...and shine

So our trip to Washington, DC was great. I’ve found myself in sort of a weird dilemma, because while I’m friends with the Flobots and work with them on some amazing things, we’re also uber fans of the music. So sometimes I’d find myself looking over at my wife with like a “can you believe any of this?” and she’d give me the crazy look back. The uber fan in me wants to run and tell you how we had all access, hanging out in the green room (which was blue), and post videos and photos to prove I was there, as if I had been hanging out backstage at a Pearl Jam concert, that’s how exciting the feeling was…. but the dilemma then becomes, well… they’re my friends! So there are moments captured that are private, or just for our family and own minds. When they leave, we’re sad to see them go. It’s good to be working with very down to earth people who see a bigger picture, and LOVE what they do. If you want the fan experience, you can see a nice writeup review of the show over on the Evolving Music Blog.

There are also a bunch of photos up, some showing us in the private balcony above the stage. That was FUCKING AWESOME! (sorry, the fan slipped out) - I did get some video, but the only one I’ll likely share publicly here is the “Jetpack” song, because I think that’s my favorite song.

Speaking of Jetpack… I can now show off some of the shirt designs I’ve done for them. The first one completely sold out for them on tour and they’re trying hard to get them back in stock for the big shows coming up… here be the designs:

Are you fueled by another engine? Flobots Jetpack shirt

If you are thinking you are winning

Bandanna Shirt

So, yeah, that was a complete trip looking out at a screaming crowd and seeing people wearing and buying these t-shirts. I guess they are doing really well. For now, you’ll have to catch them at a show to buy them, but I reckon they will try to have them online too when busyness calms down a tad.

I also presented them with the FIRST Flobots art cards featuring their own robots, and they loved them. We’ll be making limited runs of individually numbered Flobot designs that will be available to the public, and the proceeds will go to support the non-profit work. They are cool as heck, and fun to do.

Wow… it was just a really good time. I don’t know how they’re doing it with their energy levels… but it’s all very inspiring.

My wife and I also got to tour around DC a bit on Monday. That’s an awesome place. We were told how “dangerous” it was, and to be so careful, but our trip was awesome, and the people in DC couldn’t be nicer, in my opinion. Everywhere can be “dangerous”, your own backyard! But seeing some of the monuments up close, and even the white house– I never thought i would be inspiring as well. We joked that checking out the white house was so cool, you don’t even think about the dillweed who currently lives there. I guess it’s just the history of the whole place. The war memorials stir emotions around. I felt like I shouldn’t be just, passing by a bunch of names on a wall, almost as if I shouldnt be in there at all because I don’t have a family member or friend on that wall… but seeing the people who DO… scratching the names, children touching the wall, old men crying there… it was lumps in the throat action. I enjoyed the Vietnam vets who were there on park benches who would just randomly tell people what certain statues were about. We live in a lucky time to hear from our veterans. Could you imagine touring Gettysburg to hear old soldiers telling their tales?

Now, radio silence from me… I have about 400 drawings to get moving on and counting for the Will Draw Anything program.

I’ve gotten some concerned emails from people asking what’s up, noticing I haven’t blogged as much or visited my usual internet haunts, or been on messenger lately. Nothing is wrong, I’m just busy! Beyond having about.. oh, 400 and counting Will Draw Anythings to do, my main job has been working on things with the Flobots, and has expanded beyond just drawing comics, as they’ve hired me on to take care of some other things behind the scenes to help out, and I’m more than happy about that.

Sunday, I’m heading down to Washington DC with my wife to meetup with the band again, just to hang, see a show,  plot future plans perhaps… I’m working on something behind the scenes that’s going to take awhile, but i’m very happy about it. The character designs are just…. FUN. I’ve sort of learned my lesson, and this is going to be something I have a bigger stake and ownership in, and we’re going to go beyond just the comic market, and also do actual GOOD THINGS with it, be it supporting children’s hospitals or homes, to other worthy charities. I’d also like to get something together that supports our troops overseas. There should be some new official shirt designs coming out with my work on it, and my art is also ALL OVER the new Flobots RISE video that’s coming sometime this month I believe. I’ve seen a sneak peek and man… it’s just awesome. I can’t begin to again say how surreal this season has been…. ups and downs, and very downs, but back on top of the world now. This is the start of something new, and better…

If I haven’t responded to personal emails from friends, forgive me, like I said, 400 or so drawings to do and counting! Those have been great fun to do. Sure it’s intimidating thinking of all the stuff stacked up, but I love pushing myself and keeping my brain sharp. All of these happy accidents, from the Flobots, to the WillDraws are making me a better person all around.

If you missed it– the first chapter of the Flobots Comic is done… chapter two is being reworked now with an issue we want to bring to the front, it wasn’t planned yet, but I’m moving it up because it needs to take center stage. I’ll probably launch that in a couple weeks, and try to stick to the M-F updates, of FULL comic pages.

Someday, when I’m dead and gone, please tell your friends and children about how you once knew of a man who drew this much stuff all at once, and never needed sleep… and he could crush bricks with his bare hands.