D.J. Coffman - Sequential Artist, Thinker

Starting off here a note to supporters of Luigi: LUIGI DOES NOT WANT YOU POSTING ON HIS BEHALF and says it will cause him more trouble. See the end of this long ass post for details and his quotes…. moving on….

Luigi apologized via email for the anti-muslim and anti-obama remarks at 8:48pm:

LUIGI STRIKES BACK!?!

You’ve got to be kidding me right? That’s what I’m thinking. Well, to give Luigi the benefit of the doubt, this address here, which I’m NOT going to post publicly here, is 8 miles away from Luigi’s home address. And said person just typed in all normal case… so to give him the benefit of the doubt, I’ll say it’s an angry friend, or it could be Luigi at a friend’s house? (I hope not, he apologized right?) — I mean, clearly this friend didn’t get the memo that this was going to be water under the bridge now that Luigi apologized and I took the one offending photo down? — Naw. I couldn’t get so lucky. A barrage of crazy-land insulting comment posts started coming from the SAME IP address….

Ok… let’s pause it right there for a second “aFriend”. I didn’t make up any lies about anyone, especially Luigi. In fact, i did the complete opposite, I simply exposed the truth. The facts are these…

Before I go on to speaking to “aFriend” of Luigi’s… I know this must be tough. Especially if you know the guy, this must seem unfair. But he typed it here. Hey, I was fair enough and made sure his personal address and phone weren’t on here, and after he apologized I even decided to take down the really crazy photoshop one I did because it did feel mean, although it was fucking hilarious.

but back to your comments because they get weirder, and dumber at the same time…

TIME OUT! Oh. We’re going that route are we? Well, ya see, those there are just fighting words where I come from. BUT… I’m gonna let you slide, since I still believe you haven’t gotten the memo from Luigi yet that we’re cool, and he apologized and all that. So I’ll let you continue with your “DJ is a child molestor” weird totally untrue and libelous posting there just for the sheer entertainment value of my friends and colleagues… because i know they’re laughing at how completely ridiculous this is at this point…

You don’t know Luigi? You live 8 miles from him according to our friends at Google and Comcast! C’mon dude! And keep Dreamhost out of this, they are awesome! But if you do decide to sign up, use my coupon code there for 50 bucks off, just type DRAMA in the coupon line (for real!) - Better yet, why don’t you start a friggin webcomic about me! Here, I wrote a post that shows you how easy it is to host and run your own webcomic! — But c’mon guy! Now you’re grasping at straws. Anyone can go online and search my name and see that’s clearly not true. And to all those people reading this, according to this guy (douchebag), if you don’t believe him, you must all be molesters too! WTF??? I’m beginning to think that this person might JUST be related to Luigi….Call it a hunch. His messages continue…

Really now? I didn’t get that. Please send it again, douchey McDouchenstein. And again, I didn’t slander anyone. Just exposed them like I’m doing to you.

That’s actually not much on twitter, but I suppose they wouldn’t know that because it’s not true. But they will know that you’re posting from SW Dubois Street in Port St. Lucie Florida, only 8 miles from Luigi’s house. What are the odds? Also, I have about… let me check…. 4389 people subscribed to the blog here. In internet speak, that’s still not a lot. I can be a “sick bastard” at times though, i must admit… let’s continue with his comments…

Hold the phone! Did “afriend” just turn into “Donna”? I mean, theyre posting from the SAME IP address! Maybe… I don’t know… maybe they just changed chairs??? Or maybe Donna was upstairs randomly on a different computer, only 8 miles from Luigi’s house. IT JUST COULD BE….

I decided to email Luigi and give him the benefit of the doubt, even though half of me feels like he doesn’t deserve it. I told him that someone over on SW Dubois Ave in his town was posting some pretty libelous things on my site on his behalf… Luigi replied pretty quickly, he must have been near his computer….

An update from the Efh-Office…

SKULLGOYLEY BUSINESS…

My old friend Dan Taylor has a project on Zuda this month called SKULLGOYLE and he needs  your votes to get a nice kickstart at DC Comics. Plus, c’mon, I wouldn’t lie to you… SKULLGOYLE is friggin COOL! Plus, his name is SKULLGOYLE! The name alone beats the other concepts this month. So go there and cast a vote for my old pal, tell him I sent you and he will owe me many beers.

Flobotics…

I’ve had my head down working hard on stuff for the new Flobots tour before they go back out. Everything from new shirt designs, posters, banners for the stage, standees for the merch counter, flag bandana designs, site updates and about a zillion other things. They keep telling me how awesome I am, and I think I’m starting to believe it… just a little! Seriously, every band should have a ME working for them. I get things done way faster and awesomer. Or so I’m told.

Dude, they’re going to be on Conan O’Brien monday (look for Andy’s shirt too!) - How cool is that? Conan O’Brien. Wayback in the day, we always loved the musical guests on Conan. I’d sacrifice sleep to discover cool new bands on there, because that’s just how it was. (I remember when No Doubt was on his show when nobody had a clue who they were.) — Anyways, so that’s mostly what I’ve been doing. You can take a look at the October tour dates and poster here. Try to catch them if they are in your area, I promise you that it will be awesome.

A LUIGI UPDATE….

People are emailing me and asking me for updates on he Luigi situation. There has been no more contact with our anti-muslim / anti-Obama friend Luigi Raucci. (see original post)– I did just hear from someone who said he’s been emailing Lou back and forth and he’s worried about someone showing up at his house now –I’ve removed the comments that had his phone number and address because someone told me they emailed Lou back and forth and he’s worried about someone showing up to his house now. Again, let’s apply the common rule to this guy and not take it any further than just the internet hilarity that it currently is. I still reckon that if Luigi is ashamed of the things he wrote here on the blog, he should just come on the site and apologize. Maybe we can convert him? Thanks!

Beaker Bongload on the Yirmumah forum got him this present for Christmas on behalf of all of us:

It’s getting Ugly…

I can feel the vibe here in Southwestern Pennyslvania that I just don’t like. People give me a quick look of digust or disdain when I’m out and they see my Obama button my coat. Especially older white males here. I think it’s kinda funny actually. Of course I do get thumbs up from people and smiles too, but they are few and far between. On Monday we had a Anti-Obama 3 page smear thing in our mail box. It had fake quotes from his books that I won’t even repeat, but were totally ridiculous. It was the usual “He’s really a Muslim! See!?” and even the “He secretly hates white people!” garbage. — I drove the stapled letter over to the Greensburg, PA Obama office just so they could pass it up the chain to know this is the sort of stuff being passed around here….. I hope it’s not working here… but I’m also afraid that it is. BUT I’m also pretty darn sure it doesn’t matter. Like Luigi Raucci who tried to spew this hateful garbage on my blog, they’ll all have to suck it up and move on when he’s the next president. I’m feeling pretty confident that Barack will win this one.

It’s getting super ugly out on the trail too. The McCain rallies with people yelling out “KILL HIM!” and “TERRORIST!” and “TREASON!” and more…. and am I the only one who found it weird that McCain mentioned “Rifle Shots” and then referred to Obama as “THAT ONE!” — the rifle shots statement was so weird and out of line, it made me think back to Hillary Clinton’s bullshit statement where she said “We all remember what happened to Bobby Kennedy in JUne…” It’s almost as if she was calling out to psychos to step up and murder him. And this McCain meltdown sure seems similar to Hillary’s crappy campaign end. It’s almost as if they throw in the towel and realize they can’t beat him, he can’t be beaten, he can’t be stopped. There’s only one way to stop him. I can’t be the only one catching these things I’m sure.

Here’s a pretty frightening video from the rally in Strongsville, Ohio. These are almost the SAME type of people we’re dealing with in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Yeah. Scary. You can almost see it in their eyes, what they’re really not saying. It’s all over their faces actually.

Back to the drawing board…

Sometimes the internet hands you little gems in the form of an anonymous troll. I’m no stranger to it, and having drawn a sometimes controversial comic strip, I’m no stranger to threats of violence or weird insults or people typing with the CAPS KEY ON.

Last night before bed I noticed an ALL CAPS reply to yesterday’s blog from a “LOU ROSSI”, it read:

Ok, I did find that anonymously insulting and I figured the guy must have used a fake email or masked address, and I usually don’t email or respond to this kind of stuff… but again, I’m feeling a bit politically charged up here and sick of this kind of hate, so I responded a simple “Go to hell you racist piece of shit.” even though I expected the email to bounce back as fake, this made me feel better typing it. And what do you know? The guy used his REAL email address and responded right back…. ALL IN CAPS and in color this time!

Wow. Clearly I was dealing with an ADVANCED intelligence here and I was weary of responding back. When his email came in, it was marked from “Luigi Raucci”… So, LOU ROSSI = Luigi Raucci. Check. I was curious so I tracked his IP data to Florida, the area around Pompano Beach to be exact, and I emailed him to let him know that he wasn’t being very anonymous, and I also politely told him that I hope he enjoys it when Obama takes Florida and then becomes his next president, for good measure. His reply:

Ok! Couple of things here. First, he’s clearly lying and i know that now. He STILL thinks he’s being anonymous, and to boot, he’s getting all SOPRANOS up in here with the passive aggressive threat. This of course pushed me to expand my search further and with a simple search of his email address “luigirau@yahoo.com” which lead me to a few sites he was registered on, including Myspace, Meetup.com and a bunch of others…. but… oh my god… a treat… I’m now embroiled in an internet battle with THIS GUY…

For a brief  moment I think to myself… uh oh, maybe this guy IS a retired mafia hitman living out that wonderful stereotype in Florida… but then there’s this…

WHEW! For a second there I thought I was going to wake up with a horse head in my bed or something. Clearly not. From Luigi’s myspace profile “Live for today Luigi” …

Awh shoot… now I kinda feel bad for this dude. I really do. Honestly. I totally mean that. But then I think back to that hate-filled bullshit he just posted on my site. He still believes he’s anonymous somehow and getting away with it. In a matter of 2 minutes I have his street address, a Googlemap streetview of his house and even his phone number, but he still thinks he’s anonymous. He emails me this:

Well Luigi, since you asked, and had you been smart enough to see her follow up reply to your post on my blog yesterday here is what my wife thinks…

Believe me, Luigi, hell hath no fury. If someone tried to stone my wife to death they’d have a heck of a fight on their hands. She obviously did not take kindly to your assertions, kind sir.

I couldn’t resist before bed… so I sent Luigi this to let him know that he’s NOT being very anonymous and he’s clearly not in Chicago…

I’m back! A very long and busy weekend. Friday night-Saturday night was ALL wedding stuff, Sunday was all kids football stuff— I pretty much spent 3 days without drawing anything at all. This was the first time this has happened in I don’t know how long. For two days my computer was pretty much OFF and I was offline. Unheard of! My brain never stopped thinking “Dude! Dude! You should be drawing something!”

This morning my computer was acting wonky and I could’nt get my Cintiq screen to get video, even though it was clearly on. It looks as though my video card settings were changed somehow while I was away, although I don’t believe my computer was turned on… HURM… Next time I’ll make sure it can’t be turned on, because I wasted about an hour this morning troubleshooting here and worrying that I’d have to be scouting for a new video card — but now it’s all good to go.

details of the weekend and thoughts after the jump… Read more

Working much, talking little.

Still have a lot of work going on, which is good, paying bills, keeping the family fed. Feels good to be doing that with my pencil and not my back. I consider myself very very lucky.

I’ve had these moments lately where I’d like to rant on and on about how things should work in comics, or how to approach the work, or share my visions, but then I’m quieted by a voice in my head that says “talk is cheap”. I’ll have to show them by DOING it, not by talking about how it’s done. I can see the paths clearly in my mind, but the hardest part is the execution of the work itself.

Micro-Local-Celebrity: On a trip to pick up my tuxedo (hate suits! Arg!) we stopped in the Uniontown Mall, which I haven’t been to in ages it seems. There was a small sports collectors place and I saw the yellow Steeler helmets in there that my son had wanted so I decided to stop in and check it out, this one was signed by Jerome Bettis and a little out of my price range for a gift, about $350 bucks, but it was authentic. To my surprise I saw some comics WAY in the back of the store so I went to scope them out and picked up a Previews magazine to see if anyone I knew was in it or was putting books out. The store owner, nice enough guy, told me to take the Previews, which other shops would have charged me 5 bucks for, and gave me the standard ordering pitch for Previews… he asked if I was looking for anything specific when I was thumbing through it, and I said not really, at that moment I was in the “P” sectioin and curious of Platinum Studios had any listings or were putting out any books at all right now (they weren’t in there) — but I mentioned Platinum and the owner immediately said “Oh, Hero By Night!” — if my wife hadn’t of been with me, I would have likely played dumb and said , yeah!- but she motioned toward me and said proudly, “Yeah, that’s his baby!”— The owner: “You’re D.J. Coffman!”– and the conversation went on from there, asking me to maybe do a signing in the shop later this month to bring some customers in on the weekends.

It’s an ackward position to be in, and as much as I can pretend that none of it bothers me, it does. Especially when I have to explain when people ask me “what happened?” — The owner told me he didn’t order anything else from Platinum because Hero By Night was the best thing and had some real buzz around the industry and they wanted more, of course. So I had to as politely as possible (with much cursing in my head) explain the situation. But also I wanted to point out… we put out 7 single issues with Platinum Studios and one hardcover, and we were paid to produce the entire thing AND the webcomics, that’s very rare, if not totally unheard of for an indy book to even go past 3 issues. In my mind it wasn’t a failure at all, it just petered out because there was no money to produce it. And by even slightly blogging about the fact it was on hiatus because we hadn’t been paid, Platinum Studios (Brian Altounian) changed it’s mind about giving me the rights to the webcomic and print book. And that was that. In my mind, and in many others, it was like they had taken any of the good will generated in the comic book industry and thrown it away. The only reason I Bring this up again, is because it STILL doesn’t make any damn good sense at all.

So, Hero By Night was a success on a lot of fronts. I’m really proud of it. I’m taken aback when someone still wants me to come and sign, because somewhere I do feel like a failure, but the work speaks for itself regardless of how the business ended. At least we didn’t leave it hanging in the middle of an arc, that would have REALLY bugged me more.

I’m asked a lot, so what are you working on now?

1. I’m almost at 500 random drawings with the “Will Draw Anything” experiment. I think I will collect a book and sell it on my own, unless there is a publisher out there who wants to give me a very sweet deal. But I REALLY like the idea of publishing and shipping myself with maybe even a little box on the cover or inside cover for a custom “Will Draw” premium edition. I think this would be a FUN book for anyone to own, and it’s also a peek into the human mind and psychological condition. It’s fascinating for me to go back and see the requests and how I interpreted them.

2. RISE OF THE FLOBOTS will be a graphic novel at some point in the future. There’s still a lot for me to do on that end (about 80 pages, I reckon) And I’m going to be scouting for a colorist soon. The coloring is really slowing me down. I have the total vison for this book, and the message, figured out that will melt minds. The sky will be the limit once this thing is finished. Also, the band is pretty darn busy embarking on their fall tour (they’re always running!) but I’m going to try to get Stephen or Jamie to write their own mini stories that will be included in the book or tied in. I can’t get into the plot right now (it will spoil it!) but it’s formulated in such a way that we could show alternate futures or dimensions, or something a simple as a love story or slice of life issues. It’s ambitious to say the least.

3. Top Secret -After the first Flobots Graphic novel, I will embark on something else–  My top secret project has not left my mind yet, it’s stewing in there and I want to sketch things and work on this for the next year or so before even attempting it. I’ll just say it’s a way to build my own universe, and it blows everything else I’ve done out of the water. At least in my mind… but shhhhhhh….. not there yet.

Back to the drawing board.

Had my head down working on things behind the scenes. Lots to manage here, and not much time to blog.

Here’s a great post from Seth Godin this morning “When you stand for something” that everyone interested in business or creating comics should read.

He mentions that it’s hard to stand for something, because you can’t be all things to all people then. Standing for something is a great way to detect bullshit in other organizations. Seth writes:

It’s not easy to have these sort of principles in your mind and follow through with them. It’s easier though when you surround yourself with honest people who have the same interests and REALLY care about you, your ideas, your stories… not just about how to score the next dollar.

Back to the drawing board!

Thomas Jefferson’s Warning To America :

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

Just a thought there… back to the drawing board for me.

A long Sunday on the road with the kids’ football teams today. Basically any away game days means we’ll be there from 11am until almost 7pm, which makes for some wrangling when you’ve got three antsy and hungry kids. We’d likely go broke feeding them at the football stadium snackbars, so we pack water and drinks and snacks. (god bless you Sams Club)

So, my kids teams aren’t that great at all. They always lose, and it’s hard to keep the kids spirits up, but I assure my kids one on one that no matter what is said, they’re learning and they’re having fun. They’re learning the fundamentals of the sport, no matter if they win or lose, right???? Well, it was 26-0 at halftime and one of my kids coaches I see off in the distance ranting and raving at them, waving his little play card around… I was curious what the hell he was yelling at those kids, so I asked my son on the way home.

I come to find out that he had not only told them they ALL sucked, but that if they were proud of the work they were doing they should turn in their pads and find another sport. The coach even told the kid who plays center something to this effect “What are you? 145lbs? Turn in your pads and go play the tuba” — This angered me to hear this, even if it wasn’t my kid. Then I was told he called them all pussies. Yeah. Great halftime pep speech, coach!

The half-cocked me wants to go to practice on Monday and confront the coach and the league officers about this behavior, but I do reckon with the way this guy is ‘roided out, it would end badly, probably with me pummeling the fool (with my mighty fists that have been hardened to STEEL from so much drawing) — but I decided to ask my son this….

“When your coach says these things, is it bothering you?”

Son: Yes.

“Okay then, do you want me to say something to them, or turn in a report?” (in this league, you’re supposed to write complaint and drop it in a box, not confront the coaches directly)

Son: “well, if you do, I’m turning in my pads and not playing until varsity league)

“well, do you WANT to quit? Are you still having fun?”

Son: “no I don’t want to quit, but if you do say something I’d have to…”

So that’s the parental situation I was in. I knew it was bothering my boy that this MASTER DOUCHE had said these things… so I dropped some wisdom on my son…

“Well know this, son, don’t listen to a word that blabbermouth is saying. You keep having fun and working hard and doing it because it’s what you want to do. Don’t let his yammering make you want to quit. Look at this guy, HE’S the one that’s pathetic, this is who he is, and this is about as far as he’s going to go in life, and that’s pathetic. Calling little kids pussies!? Making fun of their weight even? In your life, you are going to meet TONS of jerkoffs like this, but you have to rise above it. You will far surpass them in anything you do if you put your mind to it, and they’ll still be THERE.”

I wonder if that’s as far as this coach went, because one time in his life, someone roided out yelled at him and told him this was as good as he was. This was it. He couldn’t do some other dream he had. I wonder if he thinks he’s HELPING these kids. Surely he is not.

Only three games left this year for the Underdogs… I may wait until the very end to turn in a letter with my feelings. We’re doing a lot to support these kids, I think the roid rage assistant coach has got to go next year.

BLLLURG! My mind feels like it’s been half asleep all week. Ever have days like that? Well I’ve had a week of it. I’m not happy with my output this week at all and I aim to repair that. Some random notes and thoughts to get them out of my head.

Let’s talk comics at the top of the blog, and then I’ll note politics and you can skip that.

No Baltimore Comicon for me this weekend. Back in July I inquired about getting a spot there this year, but never heard back. I had the money in hand to pay for a table or whatever, I was told it was booked up, even after that though I saw mentions from other creators online saying they got in at the last minute, which made me scratch my head. Awh well. I had planned to go down anyway without a table and hang with some friends, but my weekends are extremely busy with the kid’s football stuff and a million things to draw here.  I would have loved to have gone and done Will Draws live, or sold some nice Sketchcards at an artist alley table. Wanted to see my old friends. Jorge Vega is debuting his self published works there under the awesome name TWO FISTED COMICS. Look for him there!

GIVE ME SHELTER!- I will be a judge again for this year’s “Webcomic Idol”, put on by Bombshelter Comics. Basically you can win free hosting and stuff for your webcomic, and some nice promotion being involved in this. Other judges include far better cartoonists than I, like Brad Guigar, and the legendary Jim Mahfood , and webcomic pundits like Xavier Xerexes. By the way, what the heck is Xerexes real name, and why doesn’t he use it. Maybe I should change my name to Drew Price? Anywho… if you’re a webcomic dude or dudette who wants to join, please do. This year I’m going to try to do thorough blogging here about the entries. Last year I just kind of coasted. 

IF DC COMICS WERE SMART… I was sad to hear that DC has canceled it’s Minx line. My old friend Jim Rugg did some excellent work on the Plain Janes series. If DC were SMART, they’d move stuff like that to the web in a tight, daily serial form, pay Cecil and Jim very handsomely, and then not only build a HUGE mega fanbase online and reach the audience they were aiming for, but they would also make a mega SHIT-TON off of collected graphic novels of said work. This plan would also work with things we had proposed ( like the Action Webcomics site) , but would work even better with stuff like the Janes. My free advice to DC… it’s worth millions if they played their cards right. They won’t though, they are a big, bloated, corporate thing who cannot act quickly on it’s feet like webcomics in general can.

WOW-WE-OWE!- I’ve been emailed a Wowio update from a publisher who informs me that Wowio is now 42 days late on paying the publishers and creators. I received a form email from Wowio a couple weeks ago saying they were going to give people like 5% or 2% on a late fee on stuff owed. But I also heard that there’s been no word to some of their past account managers who are owed money as well. Communication breakdown? Frankly, I’m not in a hurry to get my 60 bucks, and when it comes I’ll probably try to buy as much Guinness as possible for my office fridge. My advice to the other creators is to demand an explaination as to why they haven’t been paid. My guess would be that there just isn’t any money to be had. And now that Platinum Studios owns Wowio, taking a look at the sour economic market, and the fact that Platinum’s stock opened at 8 cents this morning…. none of this looks or bodes well for the companies or people who are owed money.(this reminds me I have to delete Platinum’s stock ticker thing on my iphone. It’s annoying)

A sequel to Watchmen? - They’d better never, ever, ever, ever attempt this. And I’m glad the comic community agrees in this poll on Comic Book Resources. Seriously, NEVER.

Now politics…

- If McCain doesn’t show up at tonight’s debate, I think he should just hang it up and let someone else run for president. He’s the kind of politics we need to die off and leave Washington. Tired of these stunts, and glad the majority of people know what’s up.

- No Bailout- I hope there is no bailout. I know they say things will be GREATLY mucked up. Many businesses will go under, many people will lose their stuff…. but here’s the truth. Maybe this is what the greed filled culture needs is a HARD reality check. A second great depression. Too many people have been living high on the hog, living beyond their means. It’s not fair that the people who have played by the rules have to bail out Wall Street, just because of the threat that our lives will be harder. We’ve gotten too use to things being too easy…. hungry? Go to McDonalds! There’s no need to cook at home! Slap it in the microwave! This country may just need things to get hard in the wallet. I know cartoonists could survive.

Back to the drawing board.