D.J. Coffman – Sequential Artist, Thinker

Taking a break from this blog.. I’ll be over hanging out on the new Yirmumah site at http://yirmumah.ning.com – Stop by. You can also follow me on Twitter. http://twitter.com/djcoffman

LIFE: Life is going amazingly well. I feel healthy and happy, even though I’ve had too much fried food this past week I think. I’ve cut most sugar out of my diet as much as I can, and successfully replaced coffee with tea to drop some more weight. Some days the weight loss stuff feels like a waste of time, especially on dreary and cold days. But good weather is coming and that means excercise and walking and breathing fresh clean air. Can’t wait! –

Roller Derby Adventures: Our adventures in Derby continue. This past weekend the Steel City Derby Demons demolished the Dutchland Roller girls, like 230-82 I think. WOWZA! The afterparty was groovy as well. I shot pool, my wife danced with her girlfriends. Our social life is no longer boring and mundane. My wife has official practices on Tuesday and Thursday night which is like “HER” time, and I’m bored at home those nights thinking about her having fun, so I decided to dedicate that back to “ME” time and work on some personal projects again, or do something mindless like play a video game with the kids. I think my wife has the perfect Derby name now, but it’s HUSH HUSH.

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WORK: I’m done sleeping and reorganizing my world. Here are things that are going down that I will be working on immediately.

Flobots - Yeah, the Flobots comic has been hit and miss update wise. I have to take full responsibility for that, but fear not, new pages are coming soon on a timely basis. I’m still doing a ton of stuff behind the scenes I can’t talk about, and there are only so many hours in a day, so sadly the Flobot comic gets pushed to last in the immediacy line of things that need done. We have some REALLY interesting things happening this year though…. can’t wait!

Will Draws - Yes, thanks to that old Seth Godin effect, I’m still backlogged with Will Draws to do. I’m putting these back on the priority list and I’m including them with a new project (see next) — but the backlog of $2 drawings will be done and featured, and a whole new addition will be put into place.

YIRMUMAH – The cat’s out of the bag to some of the diehard supporters, but YIRMUMAH will be returning with a new format and new delivery method and it’s very own social network for friends and fans. You can get a sneak peek at the new pad at this link. Sign up and make your own profile and join the ANTI-SOCIAL NETWORK. – The network will also house my future columns as well as content from other diehard Yirmumah originals– look also for WIZ ROLLINS to be bringing back his old comic BAD SHAPE there. Also, I’ve gone ahead and released PDF files there of the 3 original Yirmumah Minicomics from 1998 that started all the trouble. They are crudely drawn and very rude humor, but I hope you enjoy them. My bitter and jaded roots.

And forget the last part… edited it out as I was typing this email… but it looks like crap is hitting the fan elsewhere regarding something else. Awh well!

Dear Intervoid… here is a mind dump…

Work 1: Finished up work on a decent size project relating to a Vampire humor book that will be coming out in the near future, written by another webcomic superstar who I’m keeping nameless because I’ve seen no official announcements about this project. Just know that it is pretty darn hilarious. I hope my work brought a little pinch or punch to the project. Thanks again to the nameless individual for the job offer. It was pretty fun.

Work 2: I’ve begun work on a top secret project for a kind of top secret client (but not really) — See? This is why I don’t blog as much anymore because most of the things I’m working on can’t be disclosed until, THE FALL. It involves just about everything in my TOOL box. Graphic design, Photoshoppery, Illustration and crazy thinking and planning. It also involves game designing and cryptography which I’ve been brushing up on. I’m very excited about this project, it’s like nothing I’ve ever done, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard of being done in this way. I’ve been put in place as sort of the Dungeon Master / Editor of the entire project, so it’s going to be a lot of work, but so worth it.

Life: Life is good. Kids are healthy, wife is beautiful. Maybe too beautiful? I’m getting a little tired of guys constantly hitting on my wife, and most times she’s oblivious and doesn’t even know it’s happening until the people are somewhat stalking her. She can’t walk through the mall without cellphone keosk losers trying to get her number, or old men making comments. It’s ridiculous. Again, she’s somewhat oblivious to this fact. I usually just brush this off and laugh about it, but it’s becoming increasingly annoying and will most likely get worse as she becomes a roller derby star in her own right. Keep in mind, I am not that jealous husband type or overbearing nutjob who won’t let his wife have guy friends. But yes, I do know that I’m a very lucky nerd. i can’t really complain, but I can tell you I understand the old men who have told me having a beautiful wife can be a pain in the butt sometimes. The good far outweighs the bad in any circumstance though. Should I buy a potato sack and paper bag face mask for her to wear in public? — Come to think about it, this must be why the Taliban and old religions covered their wives from head to toe. I totally understand now guys. But honestly, that would LAME. Grow up and suck it up. I have a hot wife… WAAAAH! Somebody call the WAAAMBULANCE!

Tattooed again… We finally got our matching “love tiki” tattoos on our wrist. When you hear people say that tattoos are addicting, they aren’t lying. I find myself looking at my arm now and imagining what could be there. I’ve always had ideas, but never crossed the threshold out of fear of how it would feel or how I might look. But I’ve long passed the strange crossroads in my life where I realized I will never work a desk job or have a real “boss” type figure in my life. And I also get that feeling now like if people are going to judge you for having tattoos, well fuck em. I don’t need those types of people in my life at all… especially in business. So who knows, maybe I’ll get a whole arm done up as time progresses. A tiki theme perhaps? I saw a really awesome design with a zombie hula girl sitting around fiery pits that said “Aloha from Hell” that I really like. Perhaps a flaming ukulele?

JAILBROKED! – I finally jailbroke my iphone this past week out of sheer boredom on a Thursday night. (Derby Widow!) I wish I would have done it sooner. I can now stream live video from my phone if I wanted to. I might broadcast from “old people night” at the roller rink tonight just to show how surreal it is. Using the qik.com site seems like it might be fun for quick video blogs. The kids these days call those Vlogs now, right? – Seriously, if you have an iphone, I highly recommend jailbreaking. — From apps Apple won’t let you have, like video recording, better camera software – fun stuff like the Nintendo Emulator – Dtunes is a free music downloader, and even a FLASHLIGHT that actually goes WAY bright to light up your way. The flashlights on the appstore SUCKKKK. I’m going to mess with “winterboard” today a little… it allows you to customize the look and feel of everything on your phone I guess, basically a “theme” — it’s very fun taking this old device I pay so much money for and making it do all kinds of new tricks. Why is apple keeping this so locked up!? Dumb dumb dumb. Another reason I don’t really want to switch to Apple full time. I hear enough Mac friends of mine who have problems on compatibility of things or if they buy something like a Cintiq that plugs right into PCs they have to buy a “special” cable to hook up with. Lame. Apple is all about squeezing as much money out of the consumer as possible. But we like their toys so we pay. But bottom line, a jailbroken iphone is WAY the hell better than a locked up one. Heck, even Woz will scold you if your iphone isn’t jailbroke.

Life is good. And busy.

Workwise: I’ve doing a couple jobs on the side, freelance spot illustration type o deals. One will be published by a reputable book publisher and likely in Barnes and Noble or wherever you find books these days. After years of doing full on comic pages and deadlines and hundreds of webcomics, I feel lazy with just single spot illos, but I’m seeing it as a mini-vacation I guess. When I get these jobs wrapped this week my priorities shift again to the Flobots comic, which I have a TON of material for, and back to Will Draws which I’m beyond behind on, but I do want to get everyone’s 2 dollar drawings done and complete sooner or later. – I’ve been thinking about turning “Will Draw” into something a little different… we’ll see.

I’ve done a little live streaming while drawing using Ustream. It actually makes me get more done because I’m less distracted when I have an audience. I may do more of that soon. You can track my twitter account or facebook status for updates on when I’m live. http://twitter.com/djcoffman

LIFE: Life is good. A season of drama has  passed here. We’ve had more drama than I can shake a stick at, and if you know me, that’s a lot of fucking drama. I think both my wife and I have sort of risen above petty behavior around us. We’ve sort of been ignoring the outside world and focusing on our core unit/ family here and it’s great. And with my wife’s new sport (Roller Derby) I’ve seen her shy quiet self sort of melt away into the full on “tell it like it is” Calista, which I TOTALLY LOVE. Because the outside world might not have seen this side to her, but I’ve been married to her for going on 13 years now and I’ve seen that side more than the quiet/shy/reserved side. That’s for sure! Now we have unleashed this animal out into the wild. May god save your souls. She starts her first official “fresh meat” practice tonight. 10 weeks or something of official training before she’s able to take tests to get on the draft team. I have no doubt she’ll rapidly ascend through the ranks. She was built for this.

DnE: I’m changing my diet again and exercise. Trying to walk a mile or two a day on the track, WiiFit– and yesterday I took the drastic step of removing coffee from my diet…. which makes me irritable and cranky. I’ll get over it. I may occassionaly have coffee but I can no longer drink it like it’s my life blood. Basically I’m trying to ween myself off of sugars. Even though I’ve lost 17 pounds this year so far, I feel fat and oafish. People tell me I’m not, but I feel this way so I’m going to keep working until I don’t feel that way anymore.  I appreciate the people who lie to me though! So I’m shifting some of my juggernautic discpline over into this part of my life so I can feel healthier and kick some major ass.

I have some friends that miss a lot of my work and are constantly asking me when i’m going to fire something else up webcomic wise. I’m itching to do it, really… but I feel like I’m waiting for the right time for me. Almost there. In the movie Monsters and Aliens the Insecta-Saurus gets killed (you think) with a shot from an alien craft… but he’s laying there and cocooning around him. Everyone thought he was dead. By the end of the movie he’s now shown up as a big oafish butterfly creature saving the day. That’s what I feel like… a big oafish creature that has been defeated and shot down, and some friends are sad…. but I’m just in my cocoon.

Whatever I’m transforming into though, I do not know. God help us all.