Creator Michael Lariccia on how he approached his latest project...

I have always been drawn to narrative work, so drawing comics has become an appropriate recent creative outlet. The accessibility of comics really intrigues me because I feel that it’s one of the rare art forms where anyone can experience it without being intimidated. In graduate school, when I was focused on printmaking I found myself explaining technique more than content. With my comics, technique isn’t as much of a distraction so the reader has the chance to focus on the content of the book.

When I am writing a comic, I usually imagine it as an animated feature and start laying down rough sketches as if they were story boards. Over the years I have slowly been developing a more gestural feel to my line work giving it a more animated feel. With “The Last of the Spitting Baboons” I jumped back and forth from detailed drawings of the characters to more stylized renderings of their movements. There’s something really sincere about cartoons for me. Vic, Isaac and Maya have an odd innocence that makes their struggle even harder. The cartoony feel also lets you laugh a little bit at the absurdity of the whole situation teetering between grotesque and cute. Science fiction is such a fascinating genre because you can really get a sense of what things were like during the time the piece was written.

Obviously in our present situation diseases and viruses are on people’s minds. Especially illnesses which we can’t cure and don’t fully understand and not to mention the fact that the general public has little understanding of the science of these illnesses. Illness also has direct social associations which get brought up in the story. The people who get this virus are forced to hide and eventually form their own culture, a culture formed by their circumstances and environment. In order to survive they form “families” which I envisioned as being similar to the mafia.

I think as printing costs and production costs continue to be more and more economical for amateur cartoonists/comic artists, we are going to see a surge of new artists. Web comics and websites give artists way more advertising than they could have afforded in the past so I feel the medium itself will continue to progress and hopefully start to reverse all of the bad connotations that comics have had.

While I was creating The Last of the Spitting Baboons I was listening to a lot of reggae and hip hop. Both genres really get me going and help to channel my energy to the paper. When I feel like I am listening to an artist who is passionate and revealing a part of themselves to me, it inspires me to do the same.

I jumped at the opportunity to be involved with Zebra Mag because I believe in the potential of innovative Science fiction. The Last of the Spitting Baboons is very different from my other comics visually but similar thematically. The social statements I am trying to convey are embedded in a sci-fi scenario, one that is horrifically possible. Though I love the escapism of space odyssey type stories, I chose to ground my story in a less extreme visual climate. The ending of the piece speaks of the reality of oppression. I want the reader to be apart of the fate of the main character. I want them to look into themselves and decide what really happens to Vic. Some may think he shoots the ground, as Isaac instructs, and runs away to figure out a new life. Others may think he turns the gun on himself in a moment of despair. The final outcome isn’t as important as the reader’s realization that Vic has to make a decision and that decision is kept from the reader.