This week’s Best of ComiXology Submit features: existential student art projects in How I Made The World; the surreal and nightmarish Illustrated Girl #1; Sam Eggelston’s taut space thriller Last Breath: Survival Against All Odds; and pulpy monster fighting action in Kevin Gentilcore’s The Haunter #1.

How I Made The World (How I Made The World Comics)

In Liz Plourde’s semi-autobiographical How I Made The World, ‘Liz’ a frustrated writer is forced to take a sculpture class in order to make up her art requirement in college, only to go on a journey of discovery while attempting to create a sculpture of a seedpod for her mid-term. It may not sound like the most riveting of stories when put like that, but How I Made The World is one of those rambling, slice of life kind of tales that just resonates with anyone who has been in a position of frustration when they could not live out their creative dreams. (Not to mention anyone who has ever procrastinated about a deadline and done anything they could to avoid it!) Plourde’s script is based on her own college days and so has an incredibly assured voice capturing that sense of frustration and futility that often comes with trying to find yourself in college. Mixing dream sequences with very real scenes of day to day life, artist Randy Michaels (who Plourde met in college) does a great job of with a very classic, almost old-fashioned style full of tightly rendered panels, packed with loads of dialogue and tons of detail. There’s also a back-up story about a girl who believes her uncle turns into a cat which is a lot of fun too!
You can purchase How I Made The World from ComiXology for £1.49/$1.99

Illustrated Girl (Enigma Endeavours Productions)

This surreal, dream-like story sees a young girl wake from a nightmare to find herself covered in marker pen scribbles. As the drawings begin to come to life it isn’t too bad when it’s just a picture of a goldfish, but when things begin to take a darker turn her parents start to become concerned – but is this a new phenomenon? Writer Jackson Compton’s story has a really dark and unsettling central idea which reminded us of both The Exorcist and also Alice on Wonderland (which is pretty obvious thanks to it’s strange Alice inspired dream sequence in the middle). With this first issue beginning with young Sandra waking up from her scribbly nightmare the mood starts darkly and never lets up for the whole time you’re reading it. As Sandra struggles to come to terms with what is happening and her parents concern about her behaviour increase it hits a lot of emotional hot buttons (especially for any parents reading it) and when combined with Nathasha Alterici’s dark and scratchy artwork (with ample scribbling throughout) it makes for a truly unsettling and troubling read, which we are intrigued to see develop.
Purchase The Illustrated Girl #1 from ComiXology for £0.60/$0.99

The Haunter #1 (Creephouse Comics)

In the town of Darkport, the streets are filled with vampires, zombies and werewolf Frankenstein’s monsters! Only masked vigilante The Haunter can keep the streets safe taking on rogue mad scientists like the evil ‘brain in a jar’ Thalamus. Kevin Gentilcore’s mix of superheroes and horror has all the traits of a classic Saturday morning cartoon with a fun mix of classic horror characters and pulpy comic book villains. Don’t be put off by the ‘horror’ tag though, this is very much a PG world full of classic scary bad guys all of which are rendered brilliantly in Gentilcore’s clean cartoony style. It reminded us of everything from The Tick, to Scooby Doo by way of MonkeyBrain Comics’ Edison Rex, and although The Haunter himself is a fairly vanilla character on first impressions, the premise of this book and the brilliant mix of characters is more than enough to keep us entertained for this first issue.
Purchase The Haunter #1 from ComiXology for  £0.69/$0.99

PICK OF THE WEEK

Last Breath: Survival Against All Odds (Angry Eggman)

Astronaut Jason Gustafson is stuck on the moon’s surface with a quickly decreasing oxygen supply after his compatriot is killed by an explosion on their ship. Meanwhile the earth is at war beneath them and there’s a chance that even if he can get through to mission control there is not necessarily a home to go back to. As far as tight spots go, this a real a tricky one! As Gustafson is forced to make an alliance with another stranded Chinese astronaut (whose colleagues were responsible for the death of Gustafson’s buddy) the pair look to not only engineer a way home using a half finished Chinese rocket, but also negotiate with their warring governments to make sure they can actually get home. Writer Sam Eggleston does a fantastic job creating an incredibly tense atmosphere for his story with a constant sense of impending doom throughout, whether it is the diminishing oxygen or the lack of an obvious way home. With simple and unfussy art from Jason Baroody and Josh Oakes, there’s no distractions for this strong story and the whole thing builds to a dynamic conclusion which has a suitably ambiguous ending which could go either way if Eggelston decides to revisit this story in the future.
Purchase Last Breath: Survival Against The Odds from ComiXology for £0.69/$0.99