D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

It’s hard to believe it’s been SEVEN years since 9/11. I myself, like many other humans can remember vividly what we were doing at the time. And how we were glued to the TV in terror almost the rest of the day.

I remember that evening, feeling helpless and thinking about all the innocent people who were killed. It was definitely an overwhelming feeling of the world just STOPPING. Suddenly, nothing was funny, nothing was anything. I remember looking over and seeing this little scented candle jar in our house, (you know the kind you buy but never light for some reason), without even thinking, I grabbed it, lit it and put it out on the end of my sidewalk near the road. I’ve never ever lit a candle for anyone before, but it just happened on it’s own that night. I sat on the porch for a minute, thinking, is this a crazy bad dream I’m about to wake up from? I know I was pretty fearful as well constantly thinking there would be more the next day… explosions. Death.

When it became clear who was responsible for this in the days following, I was gung-ho just like many other Americans to get Bin Laden’s head on a platter ASAP. I remember the FUCK YEAH feeling when I heard we were going in to fuck up the Taliban’s day and hunt these assholes down. President Bush and his blustering “We’re gonna smoke you out of your cave!” type comments seemed… well, oddly manly and John Waynish at the time and nobody seemed to mind. It was like, no matter what party you were, or religion, everyone could agree we had to bring these people to justice.

That was seven years ago.

Seven years and Bin Laden is STILL out there. The tough talk just lead us straight into a global war (World War III, whether you like it or not) - And as an operation, we took our eye WAYyyyy off the ball. Around year 3 or 4, I thought SURELY we’ll find this dude soon…. but here we are seven years later. Seven. Years.

Sure, every now and then we’re told “a top Al Qaeda” douchebag was tagged… and they always say “The #2 or #3″ guy. Every time they say that! How many #2s or 3s are there! It almost just seemed convenient to remind us that there’s still stuff going on! Yup-Yup. But the CIA even disbanded their “Hunt for Bin Laden” group! The CIA! — I mean, hopefully they have ANOTHER ONE that we don’t know about… but seriously…. the fact that we haven’t gotten both of these douchebags, Zawhahiri or Bin Laden, is a serious failure. I don’t want to hear… “Oh, we can’t go into tribal regions in Pakistan because…” — I mean, for christ’s sake, we invaded and occupied an entire country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

So that’s how I remember today. I REMEMBER that these douchebags are still out there. I remember that our fearless John Wayne leader FAILED to get these douchebags. And I’m sickened how 9/11 is being used as a political tool. The video they showed at the Republican National Convention? Disgusting.

I’m frustrated as a citizen knowing that, somewhere in the back of my mind, the bad dream continues, and it won’t end until we know those two main douchebags are caught and brought to justice. Some say it won’t really solve or stop terrorism, but that’s not the point at all. The point is, these are the poster boys for terror, and we’ve never caught them. They put out videos and audio tapes from their hidey holes in Pakistan and it’s embarrassing. When I think about the whole thing, I can’t help but think, We’ve failed… we’re failing.

I have a nervous fear that before the election, they WILL capture Bin Laden or there will be a gruesome video of what’s left of his body on the news, and Bush will declare victory…. MCCain will use it as a political football proving that the Republicans have saved us all from the bad guys. conveniently right before the election.

But not so conveniantly, Seven years after the fact.

As many of my friends and readers here know, I made a homemade sign back in April during the Democratic primaries, it was stolen, my yard trashed– and it sort of fired up my political activity again. I thought drawing a story out about the first sign might cool me down a bit, but nope… so a glutton for punishment, or a patriot, I decided to make a sign that wouldn’t be as easy to steal, cemented into the ground. Here’s the video…

(note, we were laughing a bit at the beginning because someone peeled out on Bob when he was up on the street corner)

Find more videos like this on Fight With Tools

I think I was also passively aggresively called a kool-aid drinking cult follower today as well. Of course, these people don’t have kids or a real family to think the future about… it’s pretty easy to sit around and enjoy the here and now, sit on your ass and play video games and not do anything to really support the country you live in, or promote real change in your community. It’s easy to take those things for granted when you don’t have kids (I know)– but something changes when you grow up and have children of your own… you learn to look a little beyond your years, and realize that it’s not about YOU. It’s also bigger than a candidate… it’s bigger than Obama. Whatever it is, it’s inspired this jaded generation X’r to get off my ass and do something.

Unloading my mind here…

Today I’m working on nothing but WILL DRAWS. I’m very far behind, but not really. I can’t really help that I had days of 200 orders. It’s going to take some time to get them done, and the wait will be longer for people. I’ve had a couple people complain on the long wait, but others who are pleasantly surprised to get the “THANK YOU” email from me along with their drawing they had forgotten they ordered. So, if you place an order, just think of it as a delayed grenade of happiness later on! — The original idea was… if I get a few orders, I could easily keep up, but if I got swamped, then WILL DRAW ANYTHING has sort of become a webcomic of it’s own that updates multiple times a day, and allows me to pay a couple bills or buy groceries. So thanks to everyone for their patience and support.

Another funny thing related to WILL DRAWS. I get people offering me bigger jobs, but thinking that my page rates are super cheap just because the WILL DRAWS are. That is not the case, but for regular rates, I’m more than happy to give them out privately, but I might just post them so that I don’t get so many people thinking I draw comic pages or stories, or logos or advertisements for 2 dollars a pop.

Flobots comic updated today. In doing my research for the current story, I listened to a lot of vets and current soldiers stationed in IRAQ. I took 2 days to absorb myself in the reference, and put myself in their shoes, talk like them, think like a soldier. It was gut wrenching, and the first time I’d ever REALLY worked that way. When I first thought of doing a story about soldiers or IRAQ, I didn’t want to be pretending or making things up, so the events are an amalgamation of about 4 different REAL stories I was told. Really heart wrenching things. I also didn’t want to be preachy. Soldiers don’t talk about politics, they do their job. They talk like those characters talk, to pass the time. (although they use much more colorful language!)– Anyways, I have a profound respect for men and women in uniform, and I’m trying to tell their story and I hope in the coming weeks I can really put the readers out there who don’t know, into that soldier’s mind. It gives you a whole other perspective on the things we take for granted every day, every minute/second here in the States. if you see a man or woman in uniform, or hear someone is a vet, or see an oldtimer wearing a military ballcap…. tell them THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE! It doesn’t matter what they did, or what they saw… they did it for all of us.

I try to make a point, somewhere every year, to say Happy Birthday to Jack Kirby. Every year in late August, I know he was born, and people asked me how I remembered– it was pretty simple. In some grade or other, I had to learn that August 28th was the day that Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream speech”– I learned at one point that this was the same day of Jack’s birthday, and it made it incredibly easy to remember after that.

Now this date will have THREE important markers in history… not only is it the day that the KING OF COMICS FOREVER was born, AND the day Martin Luther King gave his speech on the steps of the Lincoln monument… but now it will be the day that the first African American nominee for president, Barack Obama, gives his acceptance speech. I’m really proud of that… something tells me that Jack would have been to. He wrote stories beyond their time as far as civil rights and equality, and above all, there was a sense of HOPE in his work. It just makes me proud to think of all these GOOD people on this day.

Last month, my wife and I stood where MLK gave his speech. I looked down and thought of Jack, then across to the Washington monument which was pointing up into the sky, like some magnificent beacon of hope…

nuff said!

My agenda today is…

-Drink lots of coffee.

-FIRST - color one page of Flobots comic.

- Second - Draw, ink, color one whole new page of flobots comic.

- All day - Monitor news and events from the DNC. Flobots are playing with Rage Against The Machine today. I’m a little nervous and I hope the rally goes well. There is also a plan to march with flag bandanna wearing folks down to the Pepsi center at some point for Veteran’s benefits. Today is going to be a busy day there… wish I could have made it to help on the ground.

- do a bunch of Will Draws until I pass out.

Hey, my artwork is featured in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0XmsUlz2hI

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

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.

Last week felt like a BUST workwise, and not to mention more work pouring in for commissions and the WillDrawAnythings (which I’d better get working on so I’ll make this fast!)

All sorts of things going on on the homefront, my wife’s stepmother who she just went on vacation with has had an apparent heart attack and is in the hospital.  I guess she had the heart attack while in the hospital, but still, pretty scary stuff. We’re hoping she gets better soon.

Our planned trip to Washington DC to see and meet with the Flobots might be a little tricky to pull off, but I’m hoping the universe aligns and allows all things to be corrected. I was looking forward to grabbing some video clips and other stuff down in DC.

Soooo… I have about a bajillion WillDraws to attend to this week, and I’d better go get started on that. It’s really brought up a plethora of business requests and commission requests, and things have been very very busy… but busy is good! I haven’t thought about anything that was getting me down in a good long while, and actually, when the things do creep into mind, they seem small and petty, and it feels like I’m five steps beyond it all. So that feels pretty good.

To the drawing board!!!