D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

Thomas Jefferson’s Warning To America :

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

Just a thought there… back to the drawing board for me.

A long Sunday on the road with the kids’ football teams today. Basically any away game days means we’ll be there from 11am until almost 7pm, which makes for some wrangling when you’ve got three antsy and hungry kids. We’d likely go broke feeding them at the football stadium snackbars, so we pack water and drinks and snacks. (god bless you Sams Club)

So, my kids teams aren’t that great at all. They always lose, and it’s hard to keep the kids spirits up, but I assure my kids one on one that no matter what is said, they’re learning and they’re having fun. They’re learning the fundamentals of the sport, no matter if they win or lose, right???? Well, it was 26-0 at halftime and one of my kids coaches I see off in the distance ranting and raving at them, waving his little play card around… I was curious what the hell he was yelling at those kids, so I asked my son on the way home.

I come to find out that he had not only told them they ALL sucked, but that if they were proud of the work they were doing they should turn in their pads and find another sport. The coach even told the kid who plays center something to this effect “What are you? 145lbs? Turn in your pads and go play the tuba” — This angered me to hear this, even if it wasn’t my kid. Then I was told he called them all pussies. Yeah. Great halftime pep speech, coach!

The half-cocked me wants to go to practice on Monday and confront the coach and the league officers about this behavior, but I do reckon with the way this guy is ‘roided out, it would end badly, probably with me pummeling the fool (with my mighty fists that have been hardened to STEEL from so much drawing) — but I decided to ask my son this….

“When your coach says these things, is it bothering you?”

Son: Yes.

“Okay then, do you want me to say something to them, or turn in a report?” (in this league, you’re supposed to write complaint and drop it in a box, not confront the coaches directly)

Son: “well, if you do, I’m turning in my pads and not playing until varsity league)

“well, do you WANT to quit? Are you still having fun?”

Son: “no I don’t want to quit, but if you do say something I’d have to…”

So that’s the parental situation I was in. I knew it was bothering my boy that this MASTER DOUCHE had said these things… so I dropped some wisdom on my son…

“Well know this, son, don’t listen to a word that blabbermouth is saying. You keep having fun and working hard and doing it because it’s what you want to do. Don’t let his yammering make you want to quit. Look at this guy, HE’S the one that’s pathetic, this is who he is, and this is about as far as he’s going to go in life, and that’s pathetic. Calling little kids pussies!? Making fun of their weight even? In your life, you are going to meet TONS of jerkoffs like this, but you have to rise above it. You will far surpass them in anything you do if you put your mind to it, and they’ll still be THERE.”

I wonder if that’s as far as this coach went, because one time in his life, someone roided out yelled at him and told him this was as good as he was. This was it. He couldn’t do some other dream he had. I wonder if he thinks he’s HELPING these kids. Surely he is not.

Only three games left this year for the Underdogs… I may wait until the very end to turn in a letter with my feelings. We’re doing a lot to support these kids, I think the roid rage assistant coach has got to go next year.

BLLLURG! My mind feels like it’s been half asleep all week. Ever have days like that? Well I’ve had a week of it. I’m not happy with my output this week at all and I aim to repair that. Some random notes and thoughts to get them out of my head.

Let’s talk comics at the top of the blog, and then I’ll note politics and you can skip that.

No Baltimore Comicon for me this weekend. Back in July I inquired about getting a spot there this year, but never heard back. I had the money in hand to pay for a table or whatever, I was told it was booked up, even after that though I saw mentions from other creators online saying they got in at the last minute, which made me scratch my head. Awh well. I had planned to go down anyway without a table and hang with some friends, but my weekends are extremely busy with the kid’s football stuff and a million things to draw here.  I would have loved to have gone and done Will Draws live, or sold some nice Sketchcards at an artist alley table. Wanted to see my old friends. Jorge Vega is debuting his self published works there under the awesome name TWO FISTED COMICS. Look for him there!

GIVE ME SHELTER!- I will be a judge again for this year’s “Webcomic Idol”, put on by Bombshelter Comics. Basically you can win free hosting and stuff for your webcomic, and some nice promotion being involved in this. Other judges include far better cartoonists than I, like Brad Guigar, and the legendary Jim Mahfood , and webcomic pundits like Xavier Xerexes. By the way, what the heck is Xerexes real name, and why doesn’t he use it. Maybe I should change my name to Drew Price? Anywho… if you’re a webcomic dude or dudette who wants to join, please do. This year I’m going to try to do thorough blogging here about the entries. Last year I just kind of coasted. 

IF DC COMICS WERE SMART… I was sad to hear that DC has canceled it’s Minx line. My old friend Jim Rugg did some excellent work on the Plain Janes series. If DC were SMART, they’d move stuff like that to the web in a tight, daily serial form, pay Cecil and Jim very handsomely, and then not only build a HUGE mega fanbase online and reach the audience they were aiming for, but they would also make a mega SHIT-TON off of collected graphic novels of said work. This plan would also work with things we had proposed ( like the Action Webcomics site) , but would work even better with stuff like the Janes. My free advice to DC… it’s worth millions if they played their cards right. They won’t though, they are a big, bloated, corporate thing who cannot act quickly on it’s feet like webcomics in general can.

WOW-WE-OWE!- I’ve been emailed a Wowio update from a publisher who informs me that Wowio is now 42 days late on paying the publishers and creators. I received a form email from Wowio a couple weeks ago saying they were going to give people like 5% or 2% on a late fee on stuff owed. But I also heard that there’s been no word to some of their past account managers who are owed money as well. Communication breakdown? Frankly, I’m not in a hurry to get my 60 bucks, and when it comes I’ll probably try to buy as much Guinness as possible for my office fridge. My advice to the other creators is to demand an explaination as to why they haven’t been paid. My guess would be that there just isn’t any money to be had. And now that Platinum Studios owns Wowio, taking a look at the sour economic market, and the fact that Platinum’s stock opened at 8 cents this morning…. none of this looks or bodes well for the companies or people who are owed money.(this reminds me I have to delete Platinum’s stock ticker thing on my iphone. It’s annoying)

A sequel to Watchmen? - They’d better never, ever, ever, ever attempt this. And I’m glad the comic community agrees in this poll on Comic Book Resources. Seriously, NEVER.

Now politics…

- If McCain doesn’t show up at tonight’s debate, I think he should just hang it up and let someone else run for president. He’s the kind of politics we need to die off and leave Washington. Tired of these stunts, and glad the majority of people know what’s up.

- No Bailout- I hope there is no bailout. I know they say things will be GREATLY mucked up. Many businesses will go under, many people will lose their stuff…. but here’s the truth. Maybe this is what the greed filled culture needs is a HARD reality check. A second great depression. Too many people have been living high on the hog, living beyond their means. It’s not fair that the people who have played by the rules have to bail out Wall Street, just because of the threat that our lives will be harder. We’ve gotten too use to things being too easy…. hungry? Go to McDonalds! There’s no need to cook at home! Slap it in the microwave! This country may just need things to get hard in the wallet. I know cartoonists could survive.

Back to the drawing board.

via Boing Boing, http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/25/smile-stickers.html

That is just too awesome.

Been meaning to blog, but I’ve been busy. Last night we got a call around 8pm to let us know Senator Joe Biden (your next vice  president) would be in the area for a rally, and we thought we’d get out there and support him. I took along a sketch card I did, figuring if I got him to sign that, i’d have both Barack Obama and his running mate sketchcards in the same frame. Something for future generations of Coffman’s to own. Couple of notes on the morning…

We got to see our old friend Tim Boots there. We laughed because he was introduced as “Jim Boots”- He came out and lead the pledge of allegiance. It’s the first time I’ve actually shaken his hand since he’s been back from Iraq. It looks like he’s doing well, and I’m glad to see him out and active in this whole thing. Not politics, mind you. I mean, LIFE.

Dan Rooney came out next, the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers (your next Super Bowl Champions.) He introduced Senator Biden, who then came out and got a little choked up in telling us a story about his connection the the Rooney family and the Steelers. After the tragic accident that took the lives of his wife and child and sent his two young boys to the hospital, Joe said that he wanted his kids to have a small Christmas tree in their room but the hospita wouldn’t let him because of fire hazzard, so he had gone off to look for a plastic tree at K-Mart. When he came back, his one son who was in traction was lit up like a christmas tree and his kids were so happy– they both had signed footballs from Rocky Blier — Joe had to step away from the microphone and was getting a little choked up, for good reason. I felt a lump in my throat. I can’t imagine… he was only 29 years old back then. (You can watch his story online now)

We had positioned ourselves along the ropeline where not many people want to sit because they think they are bad seats, but us seasoned pro-hippies know that this is the best place to meet the candidates. We got Senator Biden on video saying hello to our kids who were in school, and he signed the sketchcard.

You know, a couple of days ago, I wrote about how I was embarrassed to be from this area. Sometimes you can feel pretty alone surrounded by ignorance, and especially when you have crazy paranoia like me. But Joe Biden knew a thing or two about this area, and looking around at the crowd there, it was good to feel not alone. The things Joe Biden outlined are the reasons I am proud to be from this area. There are good, hardworking people here. Whatever kind of values or ethics I have embedded in my mind was put there by those hard working people. People around here don’t do things for the money, or the name dropping, or fanfare they do it because whatever it is they’re doing, it’s the just the right thing to do. You have a family like the Rooneys, who when they heard that a Senators family had been devistated, without any fanfare or announcement, sent Steelers in to cheer up those boys. I hope they play that story on the local news tonight. I don’t know how any Steeler fan (in his or her own right mind) wouldn’t be happy to support this ticket.

Maybe that’s why it’s so shocking when those two paths mix for me. I see these good hardened people who I’ve admired all my life, suddenly say something so shockingly dumb or out of place for their character. It’s a shock to the system. I left the day’s event with a lot of hope though. Looking around the room knowing that there ARE a lot of people who GET IT. And a lot of young patriots too, men who would have given everything for our country. It makes you feel like building America up again to be something WORTH THAT. Because this war, certaintly isn’t. This country is though.

I’d like to get a shirt with George W. Bush’s face on it that said…

“Dear World,

We are not ALL retarded.

love, the new Americans.”

Sketchcard scan and other stuff probably coming tomorrow. I have a half a million things to draw today.

I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.-

“But If Not”: Dr. Martin Luther King Gives a Sermon On Civil Disobedience in a Rare Recording, Direct link to MP3

Just watching MSNBC and they’re breaking down why it’s so close in Pennyslvania for Obama because there are many “undecided voters” in Southwestern Pennsylvania. These same undecided voters are very upset with the BUSH adminsistration, which makes the reporters say aloud, if the reason they are undecided is because of race, and they don’t want to say for sure…. but I live here. I can say FOR SURE that’s what it is. This past spring I wrote about family members coming into my house and saying they’d never vote for black guy (although they dropped the N-bomb)- I was pretty furious.

There’s also been this weird uptick in REBEL FLAG sightings on trucks and cars, and even on one guy’s fence that I noticed. Yeah, yeah, I know the people who pop these flags up say it has nothing to do with racism, but let’s cut the friggin crap! You are in PENNSYLVANIA, not the deep south. Just because we’re south of Pittsburgh doesn’t mean you’re from the SOUTH, you fucking dummies. So I don’t have patience for people here who try to hide behind the fact that it’s their heritage or something… it’s not. We all know what it means– It’s CODE for… I’m not voting for a black guy.

I’m so ashamed of the this area at times that I just want to move away to place with people with more open minds. But I feel like we’ll never BEAT this thing if people like my wife and I move away and stay silent or teach the kids right from wrong. And I’m feeling a bit embarrassed to be FROM here… I want to grab these IDIOTS by the shirt collars and shake them, yell in their face…. Don’t you see it!? Don’t you see what the fuck is coming??!! They’re even willing to vote for McCain and Republicans while they say they don’t agree with anything the McCain plan has in store…. they’re willing to vote that way just because they don’t want to see a black guy get elected president. It’s embarrassing to me. I’m embarrassed for them. I thought they’d be a bit smarter than this.

When I encounter the “rolling of the eyes” here when political discussions that pop up in public, and someone who says “well, I’m sure not voting for Obama”, I know what they’re saying. And I rebut them by saying things like… do you like the high gas prices? The cash grabs by these corporations? Do you like your JOB.. you know, the factory one you think you’re going to be able to retire with? You’d better think again. And if that doesn’t get them thinking, I tell them to think about the kids…. if you have kids who are 12 or teenagers, there’s a DAMN good chance they’ll be drafted into World War fucking 3.

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP! For the love of god, wake up!

On a lighter note… maybe the Obama campaign could combat this by starting a whisper campaign that he’s only HALF BLACK! Hah! Tell these morons… hey, this guy has white blood in him too. I don’t even know if that would help, they have a word for that too.

Here’s what I do know though. Obama should come here more often before the election, and I expect that to happen. The supporters here, we’re doing our best. But I think there’s something about the man himself that changes minds. For him to look you in the eyes and say, what’s troubling you? And then he gives you a solution to the problem, it’s one you can trust, and you can feel it.

My only hope for November 4th for this area is that the racist scumbags are too lazy to go to the polls or care. That my friends who have never voted before, pack their cars with their friends and get their parents out to the polls as well. I’m still pretty confident we will see a landslide in November of young voters who don’t show up in any of these polls you see that say it’s so close… but this doesn’t erase the fact that I’m still pretty embarrassed right now to be from Southwestern Pennsylvania.

On Sundays I get to do a lot of thinking and not much drawing. We have the kids football games pretty much filling up the entire day. Here are some things I thought about yesterday.

Tax bailout… conspiracy theories be damned, but it’s looking more and more like the New World Order plan that so many conspiracy dudes have warned would happen. Well, I’m not cool with it, conspiracy or not. Our tax dollars shouldn’t be used to bail out companies when CEOs are walking away with millions. I hope the Democrats stay firm here in making sure if this happens that they roll in a mortgage plan for regular people who are losing their homes… I’m down for that. But this bailing out of huge companies with our money and we’re not asked about it or even given details, not cool. Someone tell them to leave my tax dollars alone. Starting to look more and more like socialism than a free market.

Comics Comics Comics… When I have time to think, my mind floats through concepts I’ve had for years and years (decades). Somewhere I even have a list of concepts I’d like to do. This is the list I grabbed Hero By Night from a couple years ago, and while that was great, i know there are even better ideas on that list. So I sit and think, how will i get to all of these concepts and get them out there in some format? I’m leaning toward doing 80-120 page graphic novels I think. I have no idea what I’ll do with them when they’d be done, but I reckon that if I had a good solid book completed my options would be much better than where I sit at the starting line. Find a real and honest publisher? Publish myself, serialize it as a webcomic, then print as trade. Those are all the EASY parts. The hard part is getting started and picking one to go with. I think I’ve settled that I will not pick one from my old list until I have completed my plans with Flobots comic, which I’m not sure how long that will be…which leads to my next thought…

Almost done wrapping up the 2nd chapter of the Flobots comic, IRAQ. The 3rd chapter will be getting into some science fiction territory. I don’t really want to discuss too much more than that to spoil where the stories are going, but I promise that it will all tie together in a very cool way later on. I basically found a good story element that allows me to mix every day life stories with some of the SICKEST science fiction stuff I’ve ever dreamt up. I try not to think too hard about it, because it’s so powerful I believe it could melt minds. Stay tuned for that….. I will say though that yes, there will be FLOBOTS. Think robots, but only way the hell cooler.

400. That’s the number of Will Draw Anythings I’ve done so far. I wanted it to be more at this time, but time is a major problem when juggling so much. I still have 568 in the queue as of this morning and more coming in all the time. People don’t seem to mind the wait, which I greatly appreciate. Once I can get these BIG days out of the way, the 15 order days will breeze by. I think right now I’m going to limit myself to Will Draws and Flobots work. These two things make me the happiest work-wise right now.

Back to the drawing board…

Did an interview with ComicMix, you can read it here: “D.J. Coffman on politics and webcomics”

This might sound weird, but I often forget that I have “fans”. I never really ever think about it, honestly. Somewhere in my mind I guess I just consider people who talk to me, or email or call, as sort of friends or “friendlies.” I always try to respond to every email or letter, and answer any questions as best as I can. It’s just weird to hear that I have fans. But I appreciate the fact they are there, and more over that they CARE!

I got an email this past week from a HUGE Hero By Night fan asking me if I’m ever going to do it again. Telling me that whatever bad blood there was between myself and Platinum, that I should do my best to keep it going and they listed off all of the great things that were going on in Hero By Night. It served as a reminder to me, and half a bummer that I had many many plans and many stories I wanted to tell. I think the thing that set me off the most wasn’t the money issues, it was the ethics issues. I was left with no other choice but to tell the fans and retailers the truth, that HBN was on hold because we hadn’t been paid. Behind the scenes I was told I’d be able to continue it on my own (meaning they wouldn’t be paying me) which was fine, I’d take the reigns and self publish online and in trades, and Platinum would have still had their bread and butter being able to pitch offshoots of the continuing universe as I kept it going. It would have been a win-win for everyone involved, especially them. But getting that email that they had changed their mind because I had blogged about not being paid… that’s what really sent me over the edge. As many readers here and the press have also reported, I bent over backward to tell the truth, and to be fair to Platinum as well.

I’ve been involved in other businesses in the past (screenprinting, advertising, marketing) where they tank miserably or become PR nightmares because the people in charge at companies aren’t willing to admit publicly when they were wrong, or when they fucked up. Instead they only want to paint a rosy picture to the public, and make excuses and point fingers elsewhere when things go bad. The companies that make it and are respected are the ones that step up to the plate, admit when they were wrong, apologize and then do their best to make things right. It’s probably way too late for that to happen for Platinum Studios. The only positive thing there is that they are left as an example of what not to do and how not to go about your business. Make promises? keep them. Make mistakes? own up.

So to all the Hero By Night fans out there who often email me, I don’t want to say it will never happen, but at this point, the only way I’d do it would be to have the FULL webcomic rights back to me, and that would include the ability to print collections of the webcomics as well, and merchanidising based on the webcomic continuity as well. , No ties to Platinum other than the fact they could still represent it in film or tv and be connected in that regard, with no amendments to that contract that still exists. If fans of Hero By Night wanted that to happen, they could write emails to Platinum or contact them. That’s the only way the series will be continued. Now, I didn’t say NEVER… but that’s a near impossibility at this point. Stranger things have happened though… hell, Rob Liefeld is back publishing with Image and having dinner with guys who said some pretty bad things about each other. But… that’s business!

Well, this post was supposed to be about the ComicMix interview, so make sure you exit here to read it.

Got a ton of work done today behind the scenes. 2 posters for the F-L-0 done that I’m pretty happy with, and more stuff I can’t speak of.

This afternoon, by way of NAIMoshe I discovered a new band “Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip” and have been digging on their work for a bit here. See for yourselves below…

The funny thing to me about hip hop and poetry like this, (beyond it being really refreshing to my brain), I just love the talented writing involved. In many ways to me, these lyricists like Jonny 5 or Brer Rabbit, and now Scroobius Pip are better storytellers than ANY comic book writer out there (well at least since Alan Moore)– My opinion of course, but listening to their lyrics and seeing how they are carefully crafted has inspired me much more in the past year than anything in the comic book market for sure.

Anyways, maybe I’m late in the game here, and everyone else have heard of these guys, if not… ladies and gentlmen, Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip…