Art Ops #5

Vertigo's Art Ops #5 arrives in April 2016 with a cover by Michael Allred that's hard to look away from — a sharp-featured young man with piercing green eyes stares out with cool intensity while a tangle of vivid, balloon-animal-like tendrils in pink, green, teal, purple, and orange coil around his face and neck against a dizzying op-art background. The title treatment alone — bold stripes and concentric circles spelling out "ART OPS" — signals that this series lives right at the intersection of pop aesthetics and something a little dangerous. With Shaun Simon writing and Allred and Matt Brundage on art, this is a series that clearly wears its love of art history and visual inventiveness on its sleeve.