Summer scenes with a slice of sinister: illustrator Baptiste Virot

As summer finally raises its head above the parapet, it seemed like a great time to return to the colour-infused work of French illustrator Baptiste Virot. Marching boldly onwards with the summer theme from the last time we spoke to him, the Brussels-based illustrator’s latest work features a buck-toothed dog hanging out in the surf and a man enjoying an al fresco picnic atop a ferry. But all is not sunny in Baptiste’s visual world: among the drawings he sent us is an apparently crashing plane, a man plucking his breakfast bacon direct from the farmyard and a string of pus with a destination of it’s own.

“In my comics I try to give information to the reader and at the same time keep a mystery,” Baptiste says. “I like the fact that each reader can have his own interpretation and have a moment where they are lost. That’s the way I see comics: a form that question shape and movement and humour and morality at the same time. What is a comic and why do we find something funny or not?”

Baptiste tells us that he finds inspiration all around him in “my surroundings: some situations in real life, when I walk in the street, enigmatic images from the 1970s zines, etc… Sometimes I have no ideas, and sometimes I wake up the morning with a gag, ready to be drawn.”

Baptiste is now keeping busy working with his girlfriend Jinhee Han. “We will release a compilation of new absurd full colour comics with Animal Press this year. I’m drawing it right now!” We can’t wait.