The Last Zookeeper
Aaron Becker
Walker Books

This is an ark story of an altogether different kind. Set in a post apocalyptic world, it has no text, only a series of amazingly detailed wordless spreads and there’s not a single human in sight. Instead, AI in the form of a ginormous, towering robot with the letters NOA on its arm and wind turbines to power it on its back, steps onto a flooded landscape with its incredible architecture.

It appears that he’s stumbled upon a ruined zoological garden where half a dozen or so iconic
species are stranded. He feeds them but as the waters rise ever higher, he sets about designing and building a sail boat big enough to accommodate the remnants of survivors of the deluge – giraffes, pandas, tigers, rhinos, flamingoes, elephants, zebras.

They set sail but their craft is caught in a terrible storm and shipwrecked on a low lying archipelago.

All seems lost but then from the sky there descends help in the form of another robot piloting a hot air balloon . There’s hope after all …

A brilliantly imagined, bleak and thought-provoking parable showing what the future may hold for life on Earth if humans fail to turn back the tide of global warming. Becker’s minutely detailed watercolour and pen-and-ink illustrations provide many hours of immersive meditation.