Darth_Biomech: Hello, my name's Demin Egor, more widely known as Darth Biomech. I'm a science-fiction fan, 3d artist and freelancer living in Moscow, Russia. I’ve been doing my comic, Leaving the Cradle, for three years now.

Q1: When did you get the idea for Leaving the Cradle?

Darth_Biomech: Generally speaking it wasn't even a comic back then. The idea for the setting was formed in 2006. Back then it wasn't a comic, I wanted to make a mod for Half-life 2, that would be continuation of my first mod for Half-Life 1. At that stage it was wildly different thing, far more in line with "default space opera" cliches, and the comic as of now has almost nothing in common with it except a couple of characters.

The idea for the story itself came to me in 2015, I mused on it for some time, until I finally started the comic properly in late 2016.

Q2: Can you name anything that inspired the plot?

Darth_Biomech: I'm an avid scifi fan that consumes almost anything as long as it has the right genre to it. After watching movie after movie that involved aliens arrival and space operas, I started noticing a pattern. Alien arrivals generally divided in three plots: they come all mysterious and enlightened, they come to take away our women and resources, and there was small subset of "ET phone home". And space operas only showcased situation when the humanity is already on a strong foot with the rest of the aliens or is very close to that. So all that birthed the desire to make a story that will be subverting tropes associated with aliens and that will take place in an period when Earthlings are newcomers to the galaxy and don't understand how it works yet and didn't shifted their technology and society to be more sci-fi-ish.

But despite all of that, one of the strongest kicks of inspiration to actually start my own comic was the "Outsider" webcomic by Jim Francis(Arioch). It is among my favorites to read, and follows in a similar direction both aesthetically and thematically, only with more blue space girls in it.

Q3: How long do you think your story will be?

Darth_Biomech: Honestly I have no idea. I think it will be at least two volumes, but I have little idea on how long exactly those will be. My best guesstimate is that the first volume is going to end up around 300 pages long, the second will be roughly similar in scope.

Q4: Any sci-fi story creators you take inspiration from in particular?

Darth_Biomech: Main sources so far were "The Expanse" TV show and "Mass Effect" game series. "The Expanse" is brilliant in how it tackles keeping things visually entertaining while still not abandoning the scientific realism (It's the only show or game I know of that had balls to say "yeah, we don't have any magical artificial gravity in our ships"). Easily one of the best scifi shows ever produced.

Q5: What are your hopes for the future of Leaving the Cradle?

Darth_Biomech: Main goal is to actually finish it, of course (and do it before I turn sixty). I've had a couple of concepts that could be turned into a game or TV series spinoffs, but those are basically just pipe dreams, nothing concrete or realistic. Although there is one game that I'm developing right now, but it has almost nothing in common with Leaving the Cradle or the setting, sharing just the universe and one alien species. That one is intended to be a steampunk platformer with a pretty basic "let's go on an adventure!" plot.

Commander Marty: Anything you want to say to the readers before I end this interview?

Darth_Biomech: I hope that you are doing fine among this whole 2020 thing. Consider checking out my comic!