D.J. Coffman – Sequential Artist, Thinker

So, I’m without my main computer (it’s in the shop with a virus) and I have a bunch of time to do actual drawing commissions this week. For this week only (through Dec 18th) I’ve decided to do full color art cards of ANY comic book or pop culture character (Star Wars, etc). $10 includes shipping in the US, and $20 will cover worldwide.

(NEW: See samples of some completed cards in this offer)

Each card will be on trading card sized bristol board, colored with Prismacolor markers. I will ship all cards on Saturday morning December 19th, so get your orders in now. Use the paypal checkout below. Send any questions to djcoffman@gmail.com.

ArtCard includes shipping to:

USA $10.00 WorldWide $20.00

Comic Character You Want:

Just felt like sketching up a Derby Gal this morning. My wife has two weeks until her official try out for the Steel City Derby Demons, and she’s been busting her ass putting in as much time as humanly possible with our schedule. I’m super proud of her. Can’t really put it into words just HOW much so, but trust me. A lot.  She’s cute when she’s nervous, pushing herself , and pushing more. On the rides home from the rink, she tilts her head back into the air and says “Please God…” — Please God what? I ask. She’s hoping and praying that she makes it. And I kinda chuckle and say, are you serious?! Of course she’s going to make it. In my opinion, and I know absolutely nothing about this stuff, she looks very natural doing all the things she needs to do to pass tryouts. She’s got her stops down, stance, and dear lord does she have endurance!

Watching her finally nail a t-stop and realizing “AH-HA, that’s how it’s done!” — those are the little tiny moments I see the spark of what’s to come. A weaker guy would be totally afraid of what’s coming. Shedding away the shy and timid, the doe-like eyes caught in headlights about to run her over…. now she’ll be the one doing the running over of things. I think it’s true, the phrase “Roller Derby saved my Soul” , and I can see why. She’s taking the wheel. I guess all I can say is, God help any chump that ever gets in her way again, or the next douche who tries to push her over in life. I see it opening up, and I’m proud she’s my partner.

As for my skating career, BLEHCH!!! I suck. I don’t even aspire to do it well. I can’t skate on quad skates, but rollerblades are much easier to balance on. And i hate rollerblades, I always have. Never used them and always thought they were DUMB on other people skating along on sidewalks. To me, they always seemed like the DISCO of rollerskating and I wished they would go away. It figures that they would be the only thing I could skate on, huh? Well, I’m not looking to impress anyone, I’d just like to be able to couple skate with my wife to cheesy love songs on open skate nights. Or have her pull me around. I’m not ashamed! (maybe throw me into a wall?)

This is HER thing. And I’m intent on allowing it to be HER thing and stay seperate from it.  I’ve had people ask me if I’ll draw roller derby comics or posters–  And ironically enough, the first “creator owned” characters I was going to have in HBN were the “Roller Girls”, these cool badgirls who were working against the system.  I didn’t know ANYTHING about Roller Derby or the rules, what the stripes or stars on the helmet meant– and that issue was never published or paid for, and Platinum can’t lay claim to the characters either, thank god. But I can’t help myself from thinking that these girls are like super heroes in a way. They fit a lot of the double-life characteristics of many comic stories. Most of them have professional day jobs, therapists, doctors, nurses, lawyers, etc… and then they dawn these costumes and go out at night to kick ass.  So yeah, my wife and I had talked about how it would be pretty darn easy for me to make a comic about the Derby Girls, take it to shows, have girls skating around or doing demonstrations—- BUT…. I won’t do it. This is HER thing and I don’t want to ever accidently overshadow it in any way, shape or form.  Not unless that’s what she wants, and it helps her or the team and they ask me to do it.  I just would like to be A FAN or something.

If you’re in the Pittsburgh area, or even within an hour or two drive, there is a big bout this weekend at Bladerunners in Harmarville, PA. Check out http://steelcityderbydemons.com to buy tickets and such. It’s only 10 bucks and there are two bouts that night. Also, I believe Buddy Nutt will be playing the National Anthem on his musical saw. PS, Buddy Nutt’s album “Self Checkout” is an awesome independent jewel of music to behold. Snag that at buddynutt.com — Seriously, you should check out a Derby bout, it’s fun times.

Just did this for the 700 Molemen project, http://700molemen.com/ in regards to John Hodgman’s new book ” More Information Than You Require”

I got a call from my son’s math teacher this morning. He’s sort of spacing out in Math class and not paying attention. He hates math. I think he’s a little unorganized so I went and bought him a better folder for school to get organized with. I drew his name on the one tab all decked out, and I put a Darth Vader on the sleeve to remind him he should be paying attention. (the photo has a weird digital slice in it, but you get the idea…)

Thought I’d share the sketchcard samples I did for Marvel and Lucasfilm a couple weeks ago– haven’t heard back from them. Doing the sketchcards are really fun though, I might be doing a bunch of Flobots ones soon, we’ll see. These were all done with Prismacolor markers… Here’s a look…

There’s been no “break” for me. Especially with not a steady paycheck coming in, I find myself back in freelance land doing some small jobs here and there. The little $2 dollar drawings I’ve done have actually brought in a few job offers for higher paying gigs, from company logos to blog headers… so I’m trucking along I guess.

I’m looking to kick the Flobots comic into a higher gear here. I did some writing and plotting and figuring out where it’s going on the sci-fi angle. I’m also thinking more along the lines of graphic novels for the future of my own projects, but I don’t want to jump in and commit to some giant project of my own right now.

I noticed I’ve been locked out of the Drunk Duck account to update Hero By Night or do anything over there (check pageviews). Not even a peep or heads up to me by anyone. They edited the header in a rush getting rid of the email the creator link and the Hero Gram Newsletter link. They also deleted the last entry saying Hero By Night is on extended hiatus, and all of the fan comments wishing it would come back. Another person on Twitter told me he voiced some critique on Drunk Duck in the forums , and his comments were deleted. So it appears, even if they don’t want it to, that Platinum Studios has adopted a sort of corporate fascist police state where while they have deals and contests going on, they can’t allow for ANY discourse in the conversation , or any critique of their services. They want new people and new contestants and their families, new investors to be able to come on and see that “EVERYTHING IS OKAY!” — Again… not very good business ethics at all going on there. I can’t say that it makes me very happy to report that, but I also can’t say that I really give a damn either.

Onward!

I’ve also done a lot less internet communication lately due to keeping myself busy. If I were to stop and “take a break”, i fear I might actually lose my mind or just drop over dead. Sort of like Samson and his hair or something, you know?

Fooling around with the prismacolors. I was feeling Lone Wolf and Cub today.

I’m off to Cuyahoga Falls for the day.

Here’s a Flobots sketch from the new sketchbook… the band doesn’t actually appear in the comics (yet), but I wanted to draw them anyway to practice and I have a few things planned for a surprise.

Check out FloBots.com for the latest, or over on their myspace page to listen to some tunes. I think they’ll be on Jay Leno on June 5th as well–  www.myspace.com/flobots

Thought I’d let the cat out of the bag here about “top secret project X” – I’ve had a lot of people asking what it was and what I was up to– and I’m not sure why it was kept a secret in the first place, just that I wanted to make sure it was go– and since we’re ALMOST go, here it is.

Yup. I’m doing a FLOBOTS comic. Readers here know I’ve been yammering on about the Flobots since I first discovered their music back in April… the comic won’t be launching JUST yet, but let me talk a little more about how it came together and what the goal is here, what it’ll be about, etc… this might take a moment as I ramble…

This whole entire year, I’ve felt pretty politically charged up. Back in January, I heard that Speech from Obama in Iowa, and the ones that followed… it gave me JUICE. Hearing lines. I felt like FINALLY someone is coming in and talking about real change– things I’ve thought about in my own head that I wish would be said out loud, this guy was speaking them. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” — I was so inspired, I drew a little sketch of Obama one morning in January– I laughed to myself and said, some day I’ll meet him and he’ll sign this.– In March, that happened. I’d get to meet Senator Obama only about 20 minutes from my house. He signed the sketch and thanked me for drawing his ears smaller.

After I started openly supporting Obama in my area (southwestern Pennsylvania) I began coming face to face with closeted bigotry and racism– sometimes from people I actually care or cared about. It was sort of a wakeup call to action. That’s when I painted the Obama “vote for change” sign for my yard before the Pennsylvania primaries. – This was right around the time I discovered the Flobots online and downloaded their album, and it chimed right in with how I was feeling. When I was away at New York Comicon, my wife let me know the sign had been stolen and she had been scared that somebody might come back and do more damage to the yard— I was a little scared, but furious. –Instead of sitting down and letting someone get away with that, I painted ANOTHER sign and put it out, because I felt like no matter what, I wasn’t going to allow somebody else to smother my freedom of speech and expression on my own property or anywhere.

That same week I was fired up, I emailed the Flobots because I was thinking a lot about the social messages in their music and how well it was put together– I wanted to know if they’d be down for a webcomic of some kind or graphic novel. I never expected a reply…. but they indeed replied right away.

To my surprise, not only would they be down, but they had actually heard of my work and read Hero By Night before as well. We shared ideas through email about what we could accomplish with a webcomic or something bigger. The idea of somehow involving the community, or inspiring others to activate in their community— I shared my story about the Obama signs with Flobots member, Brer Rabbit– I kinda told him my frustration and how “I would have painted 1000 signs if you know what I mean.” — His response was…

Let’s paint those signs!
This is the time, man.

This lead to some deep phone conversations with Brer Rabbit about comics, politics– It was pretty clear that these guys had a real love and passion for comics too. My goal is to be able to do with my sequential art, what Flobots are doing with their music. Communicating ideas…. activating minds. They forsee a much bigger picture than JUST music, they see it all as art and creativity– Making people think… inspiring people to stand for change. The kind of revolution they propose isn’t one that involves violence or storming the White House, it’s about being creative and sharing stories with one another– fighting with TOOLS– they have their music, my tools will be the comics– but it’s the same ammunition we’ll be firing.

They actually have a great non-profit group being setup, Flobots.org which can be read more about here.

All along, I had no real idea just how BIG Flobots were blowing up, and are currently in the process of blowing up even more. I’m pretty humbled to even be working with them on this project, and the fact that they’re pumped up by what I’ve shown them so far. I want to launch it as soon as possible here, but there are still a few kinks to hammer out– But definitly stay tuned here on my blog, and you’ll know when it happens because I’ll be yelling it from the rooftops. Things are happening pretty rapidly all around.

All I can say is… it’s pretty amazing how this all came together. I’m pretty stoked.

To prime yourself, go checkout Flobots.com – Buy their album (7.99 at Best Buy!) and LISTEN to their lyrics and enjoy.

Something for this week’s Digital Webbing Draw-Off– I envision that Electro would devise gloves that would help him control and program in different nasty electro weapons, like electric knives, bolts, etc.

I think I forgot to blog yesterday. I’ve been throwing myself into work and avoiding things on the internet that distract me. Sometimes I can be dicsiplined enough to muscle through tough times, but some stress lately has just weakened me to the point where I find myself drifting along reading blogs or doing research or learning more about business. It’s easy to procrastinate online, I guess at least while i’m doing it, I’m learning and absorbing stuff.

Our pal Jorge has a cool little “bonus” thing up on his site for Gunplay, they are old timey spoken stories, I guess written by “Priest” (Christopher Priest) that is. And it says it’s read by our old pal, Wiz Rollins, although that doesn’t sound like the Wiz I know! But I digress… this is a very cool concept, so pop it on and listen in to tales from Vega’s old west… http://www.gunplaythecomic.com/blog/?p=26

If i were an EIC or Publisher at a company, I’d want to handle my business like our old friend Chris Ryall does over on his blog: http://ryalltime.blogspot.com/ – You can tell he’s passionate about projects they’re putting out, and he enjoys showing off sample work and talking up the creative teams. Even though I don’t know the inter-workings there personally, it sure seems from my outside view that he brings good, reliable creators together, and they are a good working team there.

I can seriously see myself just taking over a company in that regard and being the number one cheerleader for it’s products. I’d love to do that, while keeping my own title going, and sort of using the way Jason and I work as a model to show to other creators. I don’t think you can just say “hey, do it like those guys do it” — I think it has to be me or Jason talking to creators and being there for encouragement. And we also have the skills to go in and actually FIX or edit things with color, inks, whatever might be off or missed. Any companies out there who want someone serious and passionate about comic books, who knows the history, past, present and future… look me up and make me an offer. I could be your huckleberry.

Hey, there’s a WAY awesome page of Hero By Night up today, featuring Doc Nowhere and another dimension. I want to do a whole spinoff sometime of Doc Nowhere adventures… see here.