Left to right: Jeff Palmer and Grandmaster Ed Parker Jeff Palmer Biography At the age of five Jeff Palmer picked up his first comic book and was immediately captured by the magical world it offered. An asthmatic child, he was unable to play outside with the other children his age. Therefore, he chose to exercise his imagination in the universe comics provided, or, even better, the ones he created with pen and paper. At the age of fifteen Jeff Palmer went to a live Kenpo Karate demonstration that was being held at his high school. Searching for a place to train since he was a young boy he knew that he had finally found his school. At the age of sixteen he got his first job, his first car, and began his Kenpo Karate training. He has been training and teaching ever since. He has even been fortunate enough to have met and trained with Grandmaster Edmund K Parker, Sr. As a fifth degree black belt, Jeff instructs others to see their goals in their minds and how to strive to achieve them. He teaches them that, "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true, however, you may have to work at it." He has helped thousands of students over two decades to find their inner strengths and passions and move towards them. Realizing that if he didn’t continue to strive towards his own passions and dreams his teachings would be just empty platitudes, Jeff entered the world of self-publishing. Two years ago Jeff Palmer began his book, "Fist Law". Drawing upon the inspirations he found from Ed Parker, Kenpo, and the sequential art of comics, he created his first graphic novel. In this book he found a way to share these inspirations with others. Mr. Palmer currently resides in Wilmington, Delaware where he is an instructor of Kenpo Karate, kickboxing aerobics, a certified personal trainer, freelance artist and writer, and is developing future projects for self-publishing.

Reported by Enrique Leong First and foremost, "Fist Law" is a labor of love. The idea that one person alone would write, pencil, ink, etc. an entire comic book is either completely insane or it's the act of someone who TRULY LOVES what he is doing. If one were to walk into any comic book store, or browse through DIAMONDS PREVIEWS, one would see a plethora of independent or small press comic books. Truth be told, 90% of the indy stuff is crap. Don't get me wrong. "Fist Law" is not crap. "Fist Law" is not Pulitzer Prize Winning "Maus" either. It doesn't pretend to be either. "Fist Law" is martial arts action (specifically kenpo) in comic book form. Unfortunately, comic books with martial arts have never been too popular, at least in the United States. Marvel Comics had Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung-Fu, a series that had a good run concluding with its 125th issue but probably never had more than 100 thousand readers. DC Comics has the Karate Kid of the Legion of Super-Heroes, a minor supporting character. But, overseas in Hong Kong, Jademan Comics are quite popular, and some come out even weekly, something unheard of in the States. Jademan Comics had a limited run in the U.S. during the 1980's with such titles as "Oriental Heroes", "Drunken Fist", "Blood Sword", and "Fist of Buddha's Palm." These comics (with fantastic art) were imported from Hong Kong and translated into English with scripts by Mike Baron. They too had a decent run but also were eventually cancelled. That is the problem with comic books about martial arts; they don't seem to have a permanent place on the comic racks. The purpose of the artist, Jeff Palmer, is to share Kenpo with the world. It's tough and I hope he succeeds, but I know it isn't easy. I was not familiar with Kenpo or the movements before reading this but I still enjoyed seeing the action sequences, but in some cases, there are a couple of scenes that the writer overdoes the explanation of movements. For example, check out the text on p.11 of the first issue that accompanies the ultraviolence: "I hook his wrist and pop his elbow with my left heel palm... Front ball kick him to the groin... Use a two finger thrust to his eye... Hop off into a crane stance and check his weapon arm down... Footsword him to his tibia nerve to put him down on his knee... Heel palm him to the back of his maxillary hinge in order to dislocate his jaw... Claw his face back to use a middle knuckle strike to his occipital nerve and paralyze his breathing... And then a hooking elbow to the base of his skull for good measure. Overkill? Maybe." Are you kidding me? This is too much, even for me. I found myself rereading the story and ignoring the words to concentrate on the pictures to see how it would "read" without all those extra words. I liked it better. The action scenes sans the text displaying exactly what the "actors" are doing reminds me of the martial arts moves as drawn by Ron Lim, in the comic book "Badger," published by First Comics. The artwork does have potential. The pencils seem more of the fanzine-type work - talented amateur, but still a little raw. The dialogue, at some moments, is cliché and/or cheesy. I think that Mr. Palmer would be better off collaborating with another person to bounce ideas off of. However at other moments, I found myself smiling. Like when one of the characters mentions Cerebus comic books. While I cannot wholeheartedly recommend "Fist Law" to typical comic book fans who read the X-Men or Spawn, I would say that if you have the spare bread and are a martial arts fan, I think it's worth the read. For more information about this comic book, contact www.kenpocomics.com A LITTLE ABOUT OUR NEW WRITER! Enrique Leong has been reading comics for the past twenty years. It all started innocently enough with a Spider-Man paperback that his parents bought for him back in the fourth grade. You know the kind, reprintin Spidey's early adventures drawn by Steve Ditko. He's been hooked ever since. A couple of years after he first started reading comix, he attended kung-fu school in NYC's Chinatown. Unfortunately, like so many others, he quit kung -fu school but the love affair remained. He has seen countless martial arts movies ranging from "Master Killer" to "Kill and Kill Again." And, of course, like any true Jet Li fan, he has seen Jet's Hong Kong movies well before he hit the Hollywood scene. He lives in Forest Hills, Queens with his wife. And yes, that is the same Forest Hills that Peter Parker called home. Contact E Leong: Ittoryu13@wmconnect.com

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