Well, it took a lot of palm greasing, but we finally got Evan “The Best Thing We Got Out Of The Moon Landing” Wolff in the hot seat, where he took time out of his schedule of doing every art ever to give us the deets, lowdown, and scoop, respectively.

Read on to find out more about Evan’s art and music and thoughts on Dracula.

Interview by Ion for Silver Sprocket

How did you get pulled into the As You Were crockpot?

Well, [in] July/August 2013, I believe I sent a message on Tumblr to Mitch Clem about having a comic in the upcoming issue, and he said that he was about to ask me about it. Then Tight Bros was on [a] West Coast tour in August and [we] met Avi and stopped by Silver Sprocket HQ in San Francisco, and then met Mitch and Amanda at the show we played in San Antonio. The rest is history.

In addition to comics, you make noises in Vacation, Tight Bros, Pretty Pretty… did I miss any?

Tight Bros isn’t really a band anymore, so I’ve just been doing Pretty Pretty and Vacation. Pretty Pretty has a 7″ coming out soon on Let’s Pretend Records and Mandible Records, and just recorded a couple more songs for a single as well, with hopefully a little touring here in the fall. Vacation has been working on a bunch of new songs that we [recorded] in July for a new full-length and more. [We’ll be] playing the Fest in October and hopefully a tour in December. Last year, I also played bass on a bunch of songs for Shane Natalie (drummer of Tight Bros)’s kinda solo project, Good Shade.

That Dracula party print is SICK! Did anything inspire that, or are you, like myself, just a #1 Dracula fan?

The Dracula poster is the third big party scene poster I’ve done, the first being “The House of Punk,” a cross-section of a punk house, and the second being “Punk Party,” a big underground party. All full of tons of friends and inside jokes. And it all was first inspired by Kramers Ergot 7, which was a huge oversized issue that Carol Tyler, who was my comics teacher in college, drew a page for. [She once] gave us an assignment to make an oversized comic. And that’s when I did the punk house poster. Hieronymus Bosch’s work was really inspiring. Also those Beehive Collective posters were inspiring. All of these kinds of drawings I was looking at were so big and detailed and busy; I just love that. It really allows you to sneak in lots of little things and always find something new to look at each time.

So anyways, I stumbled across someone named Bobby Mono, and they were putting a Dracula comic anthology together called “Too Many God Damn Draculas.” I’d never really been a part of a little collection before, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I’m not a super big Dracula fan or anything, but I liked the theme and thought of making a Dracula-themed party at Dracula’s castle, where everyone was dressed up looking like Dracula, with fangs and black capes and the hair.

I’ve slowly been working on a fourth big poster that’s a big sick and twisted amusement park—an abusement park if you will—of people paying for pain, old torture devices, drugs, monsters, etc.

Is there any creative medium you are interested in foolin’ with aside from comics and music?

I’ve been making a lot of stuff with Sculpey lately—a lot of little painted sculptures and magnets, as well as paper collages, some oil paintings, and big painted cardboard cutout creations. And occasionally a lino/woodcut. I used to do a lot of photography years ago. I’m always doing a little bit of everything; the music and comics stuff just has been seen the most or whatever, [but it] doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best stuff, but yeah. Just creating in general. Some ideas can maybe be expressed better with different mediums, or work across several.

If the Internet was on fire and you could only save three things you have created to remain in circulation, what would they be?

That would be fine if the Internet “burned down.” The best things I’ve made are real things and not really on the Internet anyway, and people probably already have [them], or [they] are one-of-a-kind special things. Then people would have to resort to word-of-mouth and share information that way. It’s kind of nice when there’s a limited edition.

How do you think the Tumblr age of instant interaction has affected artist community and chances of success?

It’s a double-edged sword; while any and every one can share their creations with the world and get feedback and have people see it who might never have seen it otherwise, there ends up being sooo much stuff being created, that things can get lost, ‘cause it can be so overwhelming. The “good” and “bad” all just blur together, and those terms are really just subjective anyways. You can’t pay your bills with “likes,” but at the same time, if the right person saw your art or “liked” your stuff, it could lead to something great. I think it ends up all mostly being “right place at the right time” situations.

What is “success” anyway?

I think success is a personal thing and is different for everyone. It isn’t necessarily defined by $$$$, although [that] can make living in society easy. I think people are shifting more toward realizing that “success” doesn’t mean the white picket fence/suburban home/four-person family/go to college/stand in line/etc. It’s about being happy and content and finding solidarity, in my opinion. Doing what you want/believe in.

If money/time allocation/responsibility was of no consequence, what would your dream project be?

Really just everything I get to do now. Maybe [I’d] get to do, like, a cartoon or like, [a] TV show like Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Bigger and better projects. [To] be able to do everything I do now without struggling to pay for stuff.

Take a look at more of Evan Wolff’s art, and don’t forget to snag your own copies of our As You Were punk-comix zines.