5. A Voice In The Dark #1 by Larime Taylor (Image)
Zoey Aarons is about to start university in California. She's a first-class student who's destined for great things. She also murdered someone 72 days ago - and she's thinking about doing it again! That is, unless this talk radio show thing of hers can somehow act as a cathartic tool to keep her bloodlust at bay... Newcomer Larime Taylor, who both writes and draws this comic, has crafted a slow burning but highly atmospheric and tense character-driven story of a young woman's disturbing inner life. The story goes into the how and why of Zoey murdering a girl her own age, though whether or not it's justified is up to the reader. Taylor tries to show both sides to the action and reasoning has the flavour of Dexter at times, though you definitely feel Zoey's torment and emotional anguish over her choices in a more stark way. The story maintains a sense of unease and quirkiness throughout by having Zoey act out her murderous impulses in her head, so in the midst of a conversation she'll begin killing people before snapping back to the moment. It's a great trick for keeping the audience interested. It's also worth mentioning that Larime Taylor has arthrogryposis, a birth defect that left him with little use of his arms and legs, and that he wrote, drew, toned and lettered the comic using a stylus in his mouth. This comic looks brilliant, completely professionally drawn, but it blew my hair back to discover Taylor did all this with his mouth on a Wacom Cintiq tablet. It's absolutely impressive and enormous credit has to go to Taylor for such a Herculean task as he has accomplished here, but don't buy this comic for that, buy it because it's a great read. It's narrative is totally unpredictable too - I have no idea where the story is headed but I know I'm coming back for issue #2. A Voice in the Dark #1 is definitely worth taking a chance with if you enjoy character-centric comics that are unabashedly dark.