Cerebus #243

The twelfth chapter of the "Going Home" storyline arrives with one of the most quietly striking covers in the long run of Cerebus — a serene photograph-style landscape by Gerhard showing a winding river flanked by autumn-tinged forests under a clear blue sky, with leafy trees in the foreground catching the warm fall light. It's a contemplative, almost meditative image that feels genuinely evocative of journeys and transitions, a beautiful departure from the series' more overtly fantastical covers. Dave Sim and Gerhard's long-running Aardvark-Vanaheim series continues to chart its own singular course in 1999, and this issue is a fine example of its willingness to surprise.