D.J. Coffman – Sequential Artist, Thinker

Here’s a funny story for you. So as most of my friends and fans know I’ve been kind of busy doing OTHER things besides actual comic work.  One day I saw some hub-bub about a new contest Amazon and Universal had created called “Comic Strip Superstar” - There was the usual clamoring of people saying it was a BAD idea. And quite frankly, it probably IS a bad idea, and I’m not even sure WHY I was tempted to enter it… I guess part of me wanted to see if I could pull it off under a pen name or just jam out that many strips in such a limited time like back in the day… As I began thinking about it, a FLOOD of about 100 strip /joke ideas flowed out of me onto paper or notebooks. I was jotting down scenarios and whatnot and…. god forbid… it was kind of fun!

Daily comic strips are no stranger to me… back in 1999 we self syndicated a strip called GRAVITY that we got into 50 papers… when we (McDeavitt and I) realized it was too much work for too little money at the time, we shit-canned the Gravity strip and moved on to do freelance comic book illustration stuff and TONS OF WEBCOMICS!

But something about producing a daily comic strip never leaves you. Your mind is always looking at the world in a certain way that I can’t quite describe. I’ve had this idea for a comic strip up on the shelve, The premise was very simple… it was Generation X parents all grown up, raising a new generation of kids.  Something we know a good bit about here in the Coffman household—-

Here was my master plan.  I’d enter under a pen name, which YIRMUMAH fans might recognize. I’d be silent and just see how far I could on the strip alone. Best case scenario, I’d be picked in the top ten, rip off my rubber mask and yell SURPRISE, IT’S ME AGAIN! when public voting time came. Pretty much ALL for shits and giggles and shenanigans like in the old days, because frankly, the pay wasn’t all that great. I could MAYBE get a foot in the door at syndicates and save their friggin hydes with my genius plans! I wasn’t even sure if I’d be willing to sign an actual contract this time. Maybe I’d just bow out gracefully if the deal sucked and kickstart the feature as webcomic on my own. I was basically figuring “what the hell.”

The strips came out pretty well for only having one week (from the time I decided) to get 10 daily comics done and 2 full color sunday strips. I am pretty proud of myself for accomplishing that workload especially with other “pay the bills” things going on at the time. It was sort of one of those moments in life where you step back and say… “I still got it!” I can still do this.

WORSE case scenario, it wouldn’t cut the mustard and I’d have something interesting to write about (failed attempt at shenanigans!) and a whole bunch of comics to post all at once for friends and fans. Who knows, maybe they totally suck? I know I enjoyed creating them and could totally produce a strip like that with my eyes closed thanks to the wealth of material I have in my real life.

What happened… I entered the contest and forgot that I had even entered. I was reminded a few weeks ago when I got an email saying I had progressed to the top 250 strips of 5000 submissions.  Holy crap… it just might work! BUT ALAS… this week the new top 50 list was put out and XYZs wasn’t on it. For whatever reason , the editors at Universal passed on it.

Now I can show the strips to YOU. I don’t know if I’ll pursue this project further unless there was huge support for the concept or maybe a better offer sent my way. Maybe it’s complete garbage? I do know I had a lot of fun kicking the “daily” machine tires again though. It fueled the desire to possibly do SOMETHING daily again.

(You will need to click these thumbnails to open them up full size to read)

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Click to enlarge strips below

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