D.J. Coffman – Sequential Artist, Thinker

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve written an extensive mind dump of a blog. Here we go…

I think 2009 may have been one of the GREATEST years of my life. Not because of career achievements, fame, money or that sort of thing. Kind of like a big ice cold bucket of water to the face to remind you what’s REALLY important in your life, and you end up doing a ton of growing because of it. It really was a transformational year for just about everything for me.

DERBYLAND:

I’ve also watched my wife transform into an honest to goodness badass Roller Derby Mama, playing for the Steel City Derby Demons. I’ve very proud of her, and I’m glad roller derby came into our lives, mostly for HER, but I definitley found another sport that I enjoy watching, and not just because of the tough gals in fishnets. I’m a bit mesmerized at the athleticism involved and just how much punishment they can take, and wear their bruises with pride. I love the “take no shit” attitude that emanates from that world. I want to see all of them succeed. And HEY, check out WFTDA.org to see if you have a cool derby team in your area to go check out. It’s family friendly stuff, and it’s not fake like the old 70s and 80s tv stuff. It might not be for everyone, but it was a perfect fit for us. Thank you Derby gods.

Comic Drawing Land:

I’d say this was the year I’ve actually drawn the LEAST amount of comics in my life. I guess I came to a big realization there too of the amount of time and work I’ve put into things, and re-evaluating what I’ve accomplished, and what the better use of my time would be this year. I’ve mostly been doing web design and new media work to keep food on the table and bills paid. I know I’ve dropped the ball on a lot of creative projects over the past year… you probably know the ones. When I get asked “what about this project…” or “why did this stop updating” — my answer is a couple sentences ago. I chalk it up to being a hyper-creative. I just have too many ideas that I’m itching to do, and I just don’t manage them well. A good example of a situation that would come up would be… I’m working hard on an update for a webcomic that runs for free online and I don’t get paid for, while paid commissions back up. Sometimes it feels like if only 100 people are reading a comic online that you’re putting out for free, and then also people bitching about the content… you kinda feel like what’s the use? That maybe your time would be better spent using the drawing and technical skills you have to make money. Now that I think about it…. I’m going to diagnose this as Creative Depression. There are no magical pills or therapy to cure that sort of depression and unhappiness. Writers would probably relate very well to that diagnosis as well. The only temporary cure is creation itself, which then leads you to more disappointment. The only way to curb the feeling is to engulf yourself in the act of “creation” which can really lead to bad things…. like neglecting your health, your family, etc. This is why many “artists” go batshit crazy over time. I’m sure of it.

It’s the first time in my “career” that it’s ever happened to me and hit me hard enough for me to realize it. It’s even very harder to admit, as I’ve JUST realized this by really analyzing my thoughts as I write this blog and internally ask myself “what the heck is your problem?” or “why did you quit doing this or that?”

Time heals all things though, this is true. And while the creative itch has never left, I’ve resisted scratching it many times this year. Another contributing factor to my Creative Depression are the folks who still look up to me or are fans of my previous works. I guess I feel like I’ve let them down in a weird way, and yet they still say great things about me like I’m a prolific creator or have achieved great success, when, at least as far as comics are involved, I feel like an abysmal failure.

At least that’s how I use to feel. Not so much anymore. Using a lot of skills I’ve picked up over the past year, I feel like everything happens for a reason, and perhaps my brain needed the time to rest and reorganize, plot and plan.

Future Projects for 2010: 2 big things lined up on the creative side…

Yirmumah: A few weeks ago I had decided to relaunch Yirmumah (my old indy comic) online, pretty much for the “fun” of it. I’ve also re-united with my old pal Bob McDeavitt on it. The “Coffman & McDeavitt” name was mediocrely known for works such as our Gravity Daily Comic strip that ran in about 50 newspapers and was AWESOME but ultimately failed miserably. Our follow up to that was Zombieopolis, which also fell on it’s face, but was completely awesome. The longest running Coffman & McDeavitt project was Yirmumah. And nowadays, we’re not so worried about failing, just the FUN of it. Instead of running it on a standard “archive” setup site, i decided to attempt something new in launching it’s own Social Network around the comic for a few reasons that I detail over there. If you’re interested, check out http://yirmumah.ning.com and become a member. It’s free.

Will Draw Anything: Another project I totally mismanaged but I’m looking to correct,  Will Draws started off as a goof to keep me busy, drawing 2 dollar mini-commissions. After a few very big links from big places and A List bloggers, I found myself with well over 1000 drawing orders or more. ACK! I drew up to 644 and stalled out. HOWEVER… I’m looking to relaunch this project, draw the missing orders (about 400) and start an all new service online that will include some really fun things and surprises.

The Computer Meltdown of 2009

Well… it finally happened. After over a decade on my PC graphics setup, I had a complete meltdown on the PC setup. Now… keep in mind, my PC setup was BADASS. But low and behold, I somehow was infected with a virus… even running multiple virus catchers, it wasn’t enough. Whatever the nasty thing was, it uninstalled my Panda Cloud anti virus completely, and then corrupted the system.exe file in some way so that it maxed out the computers CPU process to 97-100% – For the non-nerd readers, this basically means the machine was SO slow you could barely open a window on it. If you try to do too much like select files for backup, the whole thing locks up for an hour! – I exhausted my own PC knowhow and finally gave up and took it in to a repair shop. 911 Nerds in Greensburg to be exact. That’s a whole other story I’m not thrilled with. I called telling them I needed to correct this CPU problem, they said no problem bring it in, it was likely a virus. So it takes… no kidding… a WEEK to run all the scans just to tell me that they can’t fix the CPU problem… BUT, they wanted to charge me $90 for virus/spyware removal! Bwhat???! I started flipping out in their store, and the lady there assured me they removed 73 viruses from my system, but when I asked which ones, they didn’t have a list or a clue! I’m like, how do I even know they were in there!? I mean, I spent many hours running my own scans using the SAME programs they used and nothing came up. They wrote it off as the OS needing to be reinstalled… but were still gonna charge me $90 bucks. After I started wigging out a bit, the lady gave me 50% off the bill. I was not pleased.

GOING MAC…never going back.

After witnessing my PC nightmares all week, my awesome wife went out and bought me a 27inch iMac for Xmas. I’ve been spending some time getting use to it and gathering the software I need (primarily Adobe stuff), but in only a few days I’m pretty much back on the saddle and I have SO many more options available to me now and not having to worry about little things that my PC would muck up. Examples? My Cintiq screen (the drawing monitor) sometimes on a PC when you’d load Photoshop the pressure sensitivity would go out and you’d have to close photoshop and reopen. Sometimes I’d get the message I’d have to reinstall the tablet drivers. UGh. AND I couldn’t turn the Cintiq completely off, I had to have it on standby mode, but basically ON all day. If you turned it off using the power button the Cintiq, then it wouldn’t come back on unless you shut the whole PC down, unplugged the Cintiq and then did a complete restart. I had gotten use to all of the little crappy things on the PC, that when I was running the Mac, just pushing the power button OFF on the Cintiq and having it rest and knowing it will turn right back on feels very good.

AndyRok from Flobots showed me how to do ScreenShare via the iChat, this is AWESOME for webmasters showing clients how to do stuff. I know something similar is available on PCs but with Mac it’s built right in.

I was a little bummed because the 27 inch iMac screen was flickering a little randomly through the day… but I called Apple Support and they did a few things, it stopped for 2 days, then came back today. I just noticed they released a graphics update on apple.com for anyone experiencing a similar problem. I installed the patch, and POOF, no more flicky screen (so far! fingers crossed, knock on wood!) I’m less than a week in of my Mac experience and I can say I’m beyond pleased. I wish I would have done this sooner. Just hoping everything stays smooth.

Holiday Cheer

Well my mind dump is over. That felt great. If you read through all of that I salute you. You must REALLY want to know about my life and thinking capabilities. I’d like to wish everyone out there a safe and happy holiday and a great new year to come.