I started Compiling a list of my favorite figures in history. For whatever reason, it just had to be that I liked them and I thought they were cool in some larger-than-life kind of way. I immediately thought of Teddy Roosevelt. Talk about baddass. This guy is like the real-life Wolverine. Having just visited the Museum of natural history in New York (his museum) I was just stunned by the photographs of his safari hunting trips. Anyway, I drew this in my sketchbook and I think I might do a bigger and better version later:



In other new, gosh, I have a lot to post and really no time or drive to do it. I even have another comic that is NOWHERE on the web, but if you bought it at MoCCA, feel free to complain that I screwed up the printing and left out a page. Be back soon...

I've finally managed to make another comic. I'm really excited I did, because I think it turned out really well. Unfortunately, you won't be able to read it all here. I'm saving a good chunk of it for when it debuts at the MoCCA festival this June in NYC. The whole comic is 14 pages long, but here is a 5-page preview to whet your apetite that's also up in the comic section of the website:

For the past, I don't know, 5 months I've been working for a cartoonist here in Minneapolis, Peter Gross, who has been a working professional for 20-odd years and has done many projects for Vertigo (an imprint of DC Comics). When I started, we were doing backup stories on some recent issues of Fables and that was pretty cool since I really have been a fan of that comic. Check out issues 80 and 82 (which just came out) for some of my work. Now, if you expect to see my name, don't. I'm essentially ghosting on these books and just doing backgrounds. I did get to draw a robot tiger in issue 82, though.

Anyway, enough boring details.


Since completing that, We've begun work on a brand new series that has generated quite a bit of buzz and its kind of fun to be a part of it. The book is called "The Unwritten" and it launches in May. You'll actually have to wait a bit longer to see my work though. I didn't work on the first issue, but starting in issue 2, you get to see some premium Evan Palmer backgounds. Evan Palmer bus stops, Evan Palmer 19th cebtury homes, Evan Palmer industrial wastelands. Exciting!

Here is one of the many write-ups we've been getting and it showcases the awesome cover art (that just happens to be gracing the flip-cover of previews this month as well)

And here is a preview of the first issue which I had nothing to do with.

I was asked by Puny to contribute a character design to an animated music video they are doing for this song, We R Superheroes on The Apples in Stereo's new kids' album, Robbert Bobbert. Not only is this one of my favorite bands, but I really love the song and all the people working on the music video. Contributors include Tim Sievert, Jordan Crane, King Mini, Kevin Cannon and others I can't quite remember.



so this is the alter ego and his super-powered self who I'm calling The Calculator. I imagine he uses his super computing powers to calculate exactly the correct solution to solve any problem. Also, he is a serious nerd.

I've been working on a kind of font for some clients' wedding and its been slow to start, but I finally have the base of it down. This image will appear as the front of a card that we are having printed on a letter-press and I can't wait to see how it looks.



here is more of the font, and this is what I'm actually calling it as it really basically is Didot.

I never make resolutions, but I saw that a few of my friends were doing it so I'm just putting this out there so I can maybe make it real for myself. These are the things that must happen this year. Period.


1) Get a book deal. This is the big goal really and it may seem a little far off, but I have a whole year and I already have four projects that I think are publish-material, I just have to kick myself into gear and get them out there and stop playing so many video games.

2) Get a real, grown-up professional job. Something I want to do, is going somewhere, and is paying me enough to actually be able to buy things.

3) Stop mooching off parents. Don't know if this will ever be possible, but I need to actually be financially independent. With all the bills, gas and junk plus my student loans crashing on my brain skull, this one might actually be the hardest task.

4) Get out there, meet the people, and get [somewhat] known. I'm too much of a hermit and I pass up opportunities to make connections simply because I'm way too self-conscious and have 0 confidence. Well that ends today, good citizens.

and then there are some minor ones that are a little more personal:
travel
get healthier
start treating people (you know who you are) right
learn to cook everything I don't already know how to cook
make more friends with said cooking

-More art soon, I swear-

Tonight and tomorrow is MCAD's anual art sale where the community is invited to come to the school and purchase the work that is on display. Its probably the best time of year around the school because it is literally filled with art that you normally never see. Its arranged salon style so its positively the busiest the school ever looks and is a quite a feast for the eyes. The best part is that alumni are allowed to participate and I submitted twenty-two pieces for sale. The guys who set up the show decided that I deserved my own wall (its usually all mixed up) here are some pics I nabbed while they were still putting them up:





These are the drawings as I've documented them. Eventually, they will be in the drawings section, but for now, enjoy!

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I'm working on two (count 'em, two) stories right now. That's not including the myriad of countless other projects bouncing around my studio right now, but more on that stuff later. I've made two promo pieces for the stories just to flesh out some ideas. The first is for a revived project that everybody around me calls the tiger story, so I've started calling it that, too. It used to be called The Blinding Gold but I kind of hate that title now.




This scene takes place approximately midway through the initial story and is a good contrast to all the other scenes I've illustrated that take place in the jungle. I really want to just tell you all about the story, but that would be selling myself short.

The second piece is a bit simpler and is from the book I've been having to delay more and more as other things in my life keep popping up, Radical Physics.




I did this one first, but I really wanted to do something with some perspective since the story is told much more straight-forward and movie-like. I can tell you two things about this scene: 1) the jock guy chasing our hero is secretly an alien with a high athletics modifier. and 2) Our hero is about to get hurt something bad for jumping from so high.

Stay tuned for more art including a ton of new fine art and a project that even you can get involved with.

I'm currently ideating a bunch of things, as I've previously stated. Well along with that, I'm using this experimentation time to make pieces for the art sale so I can at least feel like selling them is enough to justify spending as much time on them as I am. I just unearthed this giant box of color-aid that I totally forgot that I had. Its some pretty great stuff and I don't get enough time to do the cut paper/collage thing even though I am admittedly bad at it. I came up with the following image, but I know it isn't finished. I want to go back into it with pencil or something and maybe do something a little less abstract. But what?



I'd love any suggestions.

Lately, I've been kind of exploring a whole bunch of new things. I have always really liked patterns, but I never really make very many, plus I really felt like I needed to use some digital media since everything I've done lately is hand-made (even my website). Anyway, these aren't the best, but I think I really like them. Plus they actually fit together and repeat seamlessly, which is actually not super hard in a geometric pattern, but it's something.

I was playing around the other day trying to think of fun little projects for myself. I've been really into the idea of customized image libraries and collections. For example, the project I did for MCAD's Summer Youth Catalog was mostly just building a library of illustrations. That kind of design made it into something that could be used by others. It was actually something that could be taken out of my hands and allowed others to be creative. Also, collections are neat, too. Simply put, collections are groups that have no specific sequence, only a specified (or unspecified) relation so they can be moved and jumble around and not lose meaning. You can see how these two things relate. Basically, I'm obsessed with making both. So, I doodled out this little collection or library, if you will, of cute facial features! I thought, it isnt hard to make anything adorable, just a funny face or the right expression. So I had some fun and laid them over some photos:






photos courtesy of joel gillman (he doesn't know I used them)

Three new exciting things [for me and fans of me]:

+My work on MCAD's Summer Youth Catalog will be featured in the November issue of Print Magazine

+My book, Mila and the Prince of Space just got a kickin' review a few days ago over on Comics Reporter. "Any of you editors out there curating a line of comics aimed at young people should stop reading right now, click on the artist's site link and sign him up before someone else gets to him."

+I just got invited to participate in a show of comic work at the Minnesota Museum of American Art. It don't get no more American than comics, kids. More on that as it unfolds.

I've had a tough week. You know when you're trying to get things done, but the things to do keep piling up so you end up getting nothing done? Yeah that's pretty much it. I just got hosting (bye bye MCAD) so now www.evanpalmercomics.com is a real thing and won't look all freaky in the address bar, hooray! also, a google search of myself brings up my site as the second article. totally B.A. because I'm lame, I also googled the titles of my last two comics and got a few mentions on blogs and stuff. My favorite was a twitter tweet that said The Ashen Cat has very good art. I did this a while back, but i cracks me up...

These past few weeks have been crazy busy for me in all sorts of different ways. Luckily, though, I'm finally getting it together. First and foremost, if you aren't already reading it there, my journal is now displayed on the main page of my website, , which was a whole lot of work. Keep in mind, the site is still heavily under construction. Eventually, the whole thing will have a hand-drawn feel similar to the background.

I've also been working at MCAD on a few things including comic TA-ing for their Summer Expressions Sessions where teenagers experience college life for two weeks. I have to say that I was seriously impressed by my students. They went above and beyond any of the past classes and could really teach some of the actual MCAD students a thing or two.

I also just got done moving after my internship ended and I really love my new space. Its very cozy, but extremely comfortable.



Aside from that, I've been working on some art, but not too much. Still just sketching and working on my project proposal, which is proving to be quite a challenge to write. On other horizons, though, you may be delighted to hear that a certain someone's senior project may have a chance of getting published for reals. Not saying who though.



These first two images are some colored sketches of the two main characters from Radical Physics. As it turns out, the first guy, as yet unnamed, has a high school experience much like mine, just replace art with math and science.
Finally, this last drawing may just be the cover of an anthology if it so happens to make any dear readers excited enough to do a one or two page story.

Ok, as promised. Here are the names and links of all the cool people I met while at Heroes Convention in Charlotte last weekend. This is as much for me as it is for you. Also, I guess I met more people there than at MoCCA, but that was probably because I was so busy and overwhelmed there. In the order they appear in my stack of stuff:

Paul Maybury - really nice guy seems to be exploding at the moment. Check out Aqua Leung.
David Malki - didn't talk too much to this guy, but we sure did spend some time accidentally snubbing him.
Tender Loving Empire - these guys were like screenprinting masters and they had a record label. I picked up their compilation CD and gawked at all the things I wanted to buy.
Alec Longstreth - I traded with him for 2 parts of a 3 part adventure story. Silly me, now I'm involved.
Matthew Bernier - I can't actually recall meeting him, but I have his mini Antoine and I love it.
Sparkplug - These guys had a ton of comics and I wanted almost every one. I felt bad only discovering them on the last day when I had no money.
Buenaventura Press - on the other side of Sparkplug. They publish a lot of great arty things that I can't afford, but this is where I met...
Sammy Harham - He had the best beard around and spent like 15 minutes signing my copy of Crickets #2.
Kaz Strzepek, - aside from the boss name, I sat next to him briefly and he's super nice, PLUS all his drawings are drawn life-size. NUTS! I bought his book Mourning Star and I highly recommend, even if it did start to fall apart in my hands.
Maris Wicks - funny and talented to the max. She makes these one-of-a-kind superhero dolls and I really want one! I won't spoil it, but Everybody Has One is one of the funniest comics. Ever.
Liz Prince - Equally as great as Maris, it makes sense that they teamed up for the mini, Duddits and I guess apparently live(d) together.
MK Reed - I already liked her at Mocca, but when she returned to her table with a Danboard (Cardbo) action figure the deal was sealed.
Jeremy Tinder - I gobble this stuff up. Now we're LJ friends.
Partyka - I met Shawn and Matt at their table and didn't know which book to buy so I got one from each of them.
Laura Park - I guess one of the first people I met there. She was totally the leader of the pack that included most of the people above as well as...
Julia Wertz - who I didn't talk to much, but I love her spunk and attitude. Also, fart party. YES!
Marc Arsenault - This guy gets props because he gave me a mix-tape.
Chris Schweizer - his table was next to ours and he was great. He teaches at SCADatlanta and had a band of groupies/minions who were a little much. He has an unbelievable 16 book deal with Oni.


...and that about wraps it up. I did meet a ton more people, but I either didn't get a hardcopy of their info or I can't find it. Whew. Like I said, it was a lot of fun and if the guest list is this great next year, I'm gonna try to come out again (on my own this time).

This is pretty much what I do when I'm at work, but I don't have any blacks to fill or panel boarders to draw or other high-class business to conduct. I work on my own things. Today, that mostly meant doodling. I worked on my proposal too, but I've pretty much promised myself that when I get any idea I like, I'm gonna capture it somehow. Today they flowed out from some divine mind-spring. This first one was inspired from the lunch-time conversation, "Where's Molly?"



Molly is Hope and Bryan's cat (1 of 4) and she's tiny, feisty, and boxy. She also has a stump-tale and I love her to pieces.

next are two more four-panel movie doodle comics SPOILER ALERT: they give away obvious endings...




I plan on making more. If anyone can do an Indiana Jones one, please try. Also, if you think you can do a movie that I've done better, give it a shot. Hopefully, I'll see Wanted this weekend and I'll have some fresh ammo.

I have no idea where this last one came from, but I want to do more in his universe. This might make a dope t-shirt. I'm already doodling another character that's making me giggle...



this even isn't everything I drew today, I think I might make another post soon.

This is for my friend, Tuesday Bassen's, little anthology A Guide to Dating Myself. Its gonna include comics by a bunch of my friends, but I don't feel like going to find all their sites just yet. Pretty self-explanatory, but they're supposed to summarize quirks and patterns of your dating life, or i guess in my case, live-in life.



Also, I saw M. Night Shemale's The Happening recently and I made a little doodle-comic that's pretty much designed to save you six or seven bucks. I think it does an accurate job of summarizing the movie.



This was all brought on by all the fun I had meeting and talking to people at Heroes Con. I was hit with a jolt of comics energy. I'll do a better post about that next.

This is the first version of a little thing I'm calling Robitties
I've designed it as a sort of community building exercise among designers to begin with. What I have done is composed a library of different parts of electronic gizmos into an Adobe Illustrator file. The five robots you see here (as well as my livejournal icons) have been composed using this library. If you want to be a part of the project, follow these steps:

1) Download the Library file here.(you will need Adobe Illustrator CS2 or CS3, also if it downloads as a ...ai.ps file, just remove the ps)

2) Play around, get a feel for all the parts and how they are constructed. I've left the robots I've created in a layer so you can see what I've done. If you think there should be a piece that isn't there, make it!

3) See what kind of robot you can make and save your robot into another file. Name it, include separated out any pieces you created and maybe even include a short description of what it does.

4) Email it to me! If its too big, I can also take, jpegs or pdfs.

5) I am composing a site for all the designs and eventually, your design will be up on it. There may even be merch and contests designed around them.

Keep in mind this is a rough version and its only geared towards people who own and know how to use Adobe Illustrator. Now if you aren't one of those people, keep waiting. Version 2.0 will be a flash app that will be more user friendly. its currently being designed by Joel Gillman and myself, but its gonna be a while and I couldn't wait any longer!

Good Luck!

hey, quick note.
This weekend, I will be at Heroes Con in Charlotte. I'll of course be sitting at Hope Larson's table. She'll be selling Chiggers and other cool stuff that you'll want if you are cool. Stop by if you can, its friday to sunday. Unfortunately, I pretty much sold out of my books at MoCCA, but I'll have a few copies. If you want, I can totally send you a book by mail free of shipping if you come to my table. I do have a fair amount of copies of a mini that I made last year called Super Party Fight but I don't really like it that much. They'll be a buck

In non-me news, a few things have caught my attention lately. Most importantly is the pilot episode of J.J. Abrams' Fringe. And the newly released Spore Creature Creator. I can't stop thinking about either, but the latter is especially troubling since I can't even get it. Apparently, Maxis thought it would be funny if the mac version required the absolute latest version of Mac OS to operate it (which costs $130). Its sad really since the creator is only $10. So close, and so very out of reach.