Black Road #5

Two tiny red figures stand at the foot of a vast, frost-carved mountain pass on Garry Brown's breathtaking cover for this fifth chapter of Brian Wood's Viking noir series — the sheer scale of the wilderness around them making every step toward "The Village North of the Lake" feel hard-won. Brown's loose, expressive brushwork turns snow and stone into something almost abstract, with Dave McCaig's spare blue-and-white palette giving the whole image a biting, wintry chill. If you've been following Magnus the Black's journey through this unforgiving northern world, issue #5 makes a striking case for why Black Road belongs in your 2016 pull list.