“The World Ends with a Poot!”
Review and Bonus Interview with Sarah Maloney
by Jamie Straw
Written, illustrated, and exquisitely risographed by the eminent Sarah Maloney, “The World Ends with a Poot!” is a sci fi short comic about mass extinctions and possible futures. It depicts an event called the great oxidation with narration by future bioandroids and delightful commentary from tardigrades.
I could not get enough of Maloney’s lesson on mass extinction, with depictions of cyanobacteria and tardigrades at the micro level and vast, cenozoic Earth landscapes. But the comic went deeper when it compared this ancient mass extinction to the one we are experiencing now. “Fuck capitalism,” announces a frustrated tardigrade. The comic refuses to sugarcoat the current environmental situation, but also reframes it in a hopeful light.
“Mass extinctions can happen when excess creates unbalance. The planet changes and new ways of being are imagined and created. The possibility of being is a continuous spectrum. Where there is space for everything and everyone.”
Going even deeper, the comic extends into a distant future, where bioandroids seem to make reference to queer bodies morphing and shaping according to their desires. Who are these bioandroids? Where do they live? How do they relate to the world? Maloney leaves it open to future comics exploring the topic.
Awash in neon pink and orange on warm toned paper, the printing alone is worth the $12 to score yourself a copy. But this comic is more than surface deep. It offers food for thought (and hungry tardigrades), and a sense of a path forward.
https://maloneydoodles.bigcartel.com/product/theworldendswithapoot
The World Ends with a Poot!
Sarah Maloney
2022
Self-Published, Risograph
I recently caught up with Sarah Maloney to ask them a couple of questions:
JS: How are you feeling post graduation?
SM: After graduating, I knew I wanted to take a break from comics. This was my first time in art school and one fear I had going in was that having all these eyes and opinions on my art would be hard on my heart and mind. Even though my peers and instructors all spoke about me and my art with care and love, it was more people involved with a practice that had previously been very personal and solitary. I have an immense amount of gratitude and appreciation for everything I learned from my peers and instructors. I have grown in unexpected ways because of them - in ways I couldn’t have if I had stayed at my drawing desk all by myself.
I am glad I took that time away. I have been able to shed some of the voices in my head and look at a blank page with curiosity and excitement. The space has allowed me to be more intentional with what I want to do next and what I envision my future art practice to look like. I want to teach comics. I want to continue learning different printing techniques. I want to keep self-publishing. I want to get published. I want to grow as an illustrator. I want to be a part of a community that lifts each other up and pushes out hate.
JS: How did visions of the future inspire Poot?
SM: When I was making Poot! I was thinking about how the most tragic things, the heaviest of griefs, still have space for joy and laughter. It’s sort of a necessity to have humor. Experiences and emotions are never just one dimensional. They are nuanced and often require an individual to hold many different ideas, truths and emotions at once. We as individuals, as small communities, as part of this big community of beings on Earth have experienced so many different kinds of grief. One of the kinds of grief I was thinking about was the preventable loss of life due to climate change caused by capitalism and white supremacy. Sort of a current grief/anticipatory grieving of a possible future.
So I looked to the past. I started researching previous mass extinctions on Earth. One of the mass extinctions that caught my attention was The Great Oxidation Event. Over 2 billion years ago, there was a huge rise in oxygen that led to an immense loss of life. This mass extinction resulted in an Earth that was very hospitable for oxygen loving beings. Look around and you will see all the creatures, plants and things that evolved to thrive in this oxygen-rich world.
Then, I looked to the future and envisioned the reverse of The Great Oxidation Event - a future that likely is ours if we don’t make the billionaires, the polluting corporations, the capitalist in power and the military empires in the world stop the death spiral they have us all on. These were very heavy issues to write a story about. How was I going to make it a story that people wanted to read? How was I going to make it a story I wanted to spend time making? Enter an adorable indestructible tardigrade and some fart jokes.
I hope people enjoy reading “The World Ends With A Poot!” and take something away from the story other than a fart joke. I also hope we destroy the violent systems that are trying to tell us we should fear each other and the world we live in. By some really wild chance a chain of events happened that took billions of years, and we have oxygen, and we exist! I’m glad you exist and I’ll fight for you. Fuck white supremacy and capitalism.