I’m fascinated by primates – lemurs, monkeys, apes and, especially, hominids – the offshoots of the human evolutionary line that probably have gone extinct. I say probably because human beings have been seeing mysterious hairy manlike creatures on every continent except Antarctica up until the present day. There’s the Yeti and the Yeren in Asia, Bigfoot in North America, the Yowie in Australia and a variety of creatures in Africa and South America.

Miracle Max was originally conceived of as a sort of simian, more family friendly Doc Savage. He had team of scientists and adventurers that he worked with. Sometimes he fought international criminals. Sometimes he tracked down mysterious creatures – lake monsters, sea serpents, skyfish and other things.

This illustration was done to both play around in that version of Max’s universe and to practice inking with Micron pens. I put as many examples of primates, both real and anomalous, in the illustration as I could fit. The featured humans are members of Max’s team.