Spotlight on
Evan Brian "Brain" Doyle
What an Imagination!
A teenager uses his humor
and creativity to publish books.
Evan Brian “Brain” Doyle, co-author, illustrator
and subject of the book EVAN BRAIN! Adventures of
a Delusional Kid Superhero (Becker Doyle and Associates
Publishing) doesn’t claim to be a superhero in
real life. He’s just a regular teenager.
Still, the 17 year old seems to have gotten an extra
dose of imagination and talent from the gene pool.
“Evan Doyle is a truly gifted cartoonist,”
says Nicholas Gilroy, Ph.D., professor emeritus of communication
from the Bronx Community College of the City University
of New York. His work is fresh, witty and edgy—
with a diverse cast of endlessly delightful, wickedly
funny characters. I only wish Evan’s work was
in my daily paper so that I could have the pleasure
of following his adventures every day.”
The title EVAN BRAIN! refers to Evan’s
alias in 1st grade. He penned this name on his school
papers to annoy his teacher and to proclaim he was smart.
Evan’s recently published funny book tells about
young Evan’s real-life adventures in elementary
school and with his babysitters— from both Evan’s
perspective and his mother’s. The book contains
Evan’s actual apology notes, letters to his parents,
and homework assignments.
“Evan is my son we have all the funny stories
about,” says Evan’s mother, Eve Becker-Doyle,
who wrote the book with Evan and formed a publishing
company to publish it. “We joke about Evan being
Calvin in another life. As a child, Evan read every
Calvin and Hobbes comic strip he could get his hands
on. And like Calvin, Evan sees the world differently
than most people.”
This skewed perspective is evident in Evan’s
fantasy version of each story in the book. For example,
here’s how Evan describes his brother and sister:
“Besides his parents, Evan observed two other
freakish alien beings lived in his house. One was a
boy, obviously a Zargaxian Gortak from a distant galaxy…this
gruesome creature was Evan’s brother... There
was a girl as well. She, too, was an imposter, a Tentacle-eyed
Bloodworm… A hideous creature, indeed.”
In other stories, Evan’s bizarre creative vision
refashions kindergarten as jail and his teacher, Ms.
M, as the evil hag Torblax Mugtulla. One episode that
finds Evan giving a classmate a haircut morphs into
“a titanic fight” in which Evan succeeds
“in scalping the Gorbat alive.” And what
happens as a result of the vicious brawl? “Due
to his victory against the Gorbat, the evil overlord
known as the principal allowed Evan to have a three-day
vacation.”
Cheering him on in real life, Evan’s mother is
proud of her son’s ingenuity and insight. “I
kid Evan about being highly unmotivated, but he is an
enormously creative and talented young man,” says
Becker-Doyle. “When he gets around to doing the
work, he whips off some pretty clever and very funny
material in 15 or 20 minutes. He doesn’t spend
time in advance thinking about it. He just sits down
at the keyboard, starts typing and out it comes,”
says Evan’s mother. “Considering that I
labor and agonize over every sentence, I think that’s
pretty amazing. I spend way longer nagging him than
it takes him to do the job.”
After reading EVAN BRAIN!, Devena Karpelman,
a middle school teacher in Seattle, expresses an enthusiastic
appreciation for Evan’s imagination and sass.
“It’s fabulous!,” comments Karpelman.
“Tell Evan that it’s possible to overthrow
the evil overlords of education. He just has to get
more subversive and a lot more quiet. That’s OK;
don’t tell him. I’ll just mail him a kit.”
What does the future hold? Evan
is working with his mother on three more books.
•EVAN BRAIN’s Christmas List and Other
Shenanigans: Boy Warrior Fights Evil will be out
in fall 2008.
•EVAN BRAIN and the Christmas Rat, slated
for 2009 publication, recounts the story of rascally
rodent that invaded and terrorized Evan’s household
on Christmas Eve when Evan was age 3.
•EVAN BRAIN, Midas and Moolah, which
is also expected to be published in 2009, has a financial
literacy theme. It portrays Evan having various humorous
encounters while earning, saving and spending money.
Evan created the EVAN BRAIN!
series when he was 15 years old. He is enrolled in the
Dallas Public Schools, where he attended Travis Talented
and Gifted Middle School, and is currently a junior
at the Science and Engineering Magnet High School. Evan’s
interests include tinkering with computers, reading
comics, looking in the refrigerator, watching rugby
and sleeping.
Read more about Evan at www.evanbrain.com.
The books and greeting cards may be purchased through
the web site and on www.amazon.com.
