Beasts of Burden #1

Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson bring a genuinely distinctive blend of suburban warmth and creeping dread to this 2009 Dark Horse series opener. Jill Thompson's watercolor cover sets the tone beautifully — a group of dogs (including a Rottweiler, a Husky, a Beagle mix, a Border Collie, and a Pug) plus a small orange cat stand alert in a blood-red forest, while an enormous ghostly skull looms ominously in the crimson sky above the bare trees. It's an arresting image that promises something far darker lurking beneath the cozy neighborhood-pet surface of "The Gathering Storm.