Alex #[nn]

Mark Kalesniko's Alex from Fantagraphics is a quietly compelling work, and this cover sets the mood perfectly. A bespectacled, wide-eyed figure — rendered in stark black-and-white linework — clutches what appears to be a small stack of papers or cards, standing before a richly painted backdrop of a dense, colorful townscape beneath a brooding layered sky. The deliberate contrast between the loose, expressive painted background and the crisp cartoon figure gives the whole image a melancholy, searching quality that draws you right in.