Blood and Shadows #3

From the pen of Joe R. Lansdale and the brush of Mark A. Nelson comes this third chapter of DC Vertigo's Blood and Shadows, and the cover alone makes a compelling case for the whole series. Nelson's art splits the image into two vivid worlds: above, a hellish crimson realm churning with monstrous, skull-strewn chaos; below, a sun-scorched desert landscape where a sunglasses-wearing woman in a holstered gunbelt and a cowboy-hatted man stand their ground atop smoldering wreckage, a forbidding fortress looming behind them. It's a striking collision of horror and hardboiled Western atmosphere that captures exactly the kind of gritty, boundary-pushing storytelling Vertigo was built for in 1996.