Illustration: Jesse Jacobs’ giant ice monkeys and swirling creatures of the cosmos

I read in the newspaper today that a lone alien enthusiast might have discovered a spaceship whilst scanning through hours of satellite footage one coffee-fuelled night. When I think about it, it seems more likely that this space fanatic stumbled across the illustrations of Jesse Jacobs, whose explosive compositions manage to make even pastel colours seem cosmic.

Jesse has published a few graphic novels to date, including By This You Shall Know Him, all about a gang of celestial beings whose skin seems made out of the same dimpled texture as the pickled alien in Dune. Other illustrations include a group of ploddy, snail-necked monsters in the middle of a ritual, and a pair of giant ice monkeys sharing a frigid embrace. The colour coordinations, or maybe it’s better to describe them as colour contradictions, of Jesse’s compositions are extremely appealing: hot pinks are strikingly melded with slime green, and startling flashes of red peek out amongst a sea of blazing turquoise.

Pixelated robots, ropey organisms, swirling creatures of the cosmos, and even a bundle of intergalactic puppies feature in Jesse’s work, and we really cannot get enough of the meteoric illustrations.