D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

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?

A while ago, I was approached to do a HULK 100 cover for the Hero Initiative. You can start checking out the galleries over on Comic Book Resources, but here’s mine– the chains were all silver ink and look pretty in person.

So, i guess that’s my first official work for Marvel out there. Hooray.

Guess what? Hero By Night Ongoing #3 is available for PREORDER today. I want to do a big push this month to get our preorder numbers UP UP UP. So please, pretty please, go to your local comic shop and ask them to preorder it. OR if you want to preorder online, I found a great site where you can do that. Click here, or on the cover below.

Just a little something from something…

Sucky day today so far. My wife is sick– probably caught something at the gym. Our physical trainer was sick on Friday, and kinda sniffling a bit while I was there Monday. Suck! — I’m ok so far, but my wife is down and out. Gotta go run and get her some OJ (the juice, not the murderer) and some chicken soup and dayquil here soon.

I think drinking so much coffee actually does infuse your system with antioxidants that ward off viruses somehow. I rarely get sick, knock on wood!– Late last night though, my right arm, tricep area started to get sore. Woke up at 5am with it hurting pretty bad. It appears as though I strained a muscle that is never ever used and it just gave me the big EFH-U! It hurts– it sucks, but oh well I guess.

I’m going to go pick things up for my wife… send out awesome vibes to the universe so positive things come back to me today, and then I’m gonna go draw some awesome pictures for people that I owe.

Oh… and… Go Obama!

Something Jason and I just did up… something… hint, buy Hero By Night #2.

Anyways, wrapping up issue 2 here to turn in for proofing and it’ll be off to the printer soon. I’m not resting, getting right into other stuff… we’re supposed to be doing a FCBD book special which I came up with a great idea for, but I gotta get cranking on it NOW. Busy busy busy!

 Yesterday Jason Embury (colorist) and I completed 5 complete pages ready for print for an educational style comic thing that I can’t really talk about any more than that. Here’s the first splash shot of page one though…

- So yeah, that was really fun. Honestly I don’t know of anyone else who could have pulled off the workload we did yesterday. So, high fives to Jason on this too. My kids already want that to be an animated show or something. (I wish!)

LIFE:

I didn’t get much sleep at all last night. My dog was spooked by something outside and was barking all night. I went outside to try to calm her down, but to no avail. This morning my wife and I smelled a skunk though… hooray! But yeah, while yesterday was a juggernautic output, today’s workload has suffered. I’ll be lucky if I get one page inked like a normal human being should.

WORK:

I deleted some bastard’s comment about me having delusions of grandeur about Hero By Night. He mentioned we only sold like 2000 books to shops or something, which is not true– you have to account the fact of reorders, conventions and online sales, etc etc… - But screw all the number talk… what I meant was THE STORY.  Which, I’m sorry if it seems big headed of me to say it’s something special, but it has been. From the all the great reviews of the book which you can find online (not a bad one in sight that I can find, believe me, i looked!) to all the NEW and OLD comic readers who come up to us at shows to sing our praises for it…. I’m STILL not use to it, but I’m glad that OTHER people have witnessed this. Jason knows… anyone who’s sat near my table or hung out at the past shows this year knows what I mean and have witnessed the weird glowing praise. Has it made my head or ego big? No friggin way.  but it IS something special. To these people I’ve talked to, the retailers I’ve talked to.. THEY think it’s important. So that feels nice, but it’s also terrifying.

Terrifying how??? Well you just worry that you might have told your ONE great story there. Can you top it? Can you keep those people happy? Keep em guessing, intrigued? Hooked? It feels like a challenge. Just like when I won that contest I thought ‘–”Oh man, now I’d better deliver!” — same feeling when someone comes up praising HBN at a show, or the hundreds of emails we get… I think .. “Oh man, I’d better KEEP delivering.”

Anyway, just wanted to explain a little about where those comments come from. It’s not just me sitting in a room saying “DUDE, I’M SPECIAL! EVERYTHING I DRAW IS IMPORTANT!” — I do know guys like that though! I’m definitely NOT that.

Odds and Ends-

DEAD STUFF- I was snooping around at old haunts after old collaborator Brian Lynch posted here and saw the link to his project “EVERYBODY’S DEAD” which is coming soon from IDW. Heres some sample art. To the best of my memory, that was a movie script Brian had in the Hollywood machine for years and years– it’s going to make an outstanding comic book series. The art on that looks killer. Said it before, I’ll say it again, IDW puts out some of the best quality books around. Check out their Everybody’s dead myspace page. 

 Go SOX! - Bob and I have a bet on baseball. He says Cleveland will go to the World Series. I say nay. So we have a whole dollar riding on that.

Screw you internet, I’m going to enjoy my weekend.

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