Cerebus #296

The penultimate stretch of Dave Sim and Gerhard's landmark 300-issue run arrives with issue #296, subtitled "Latter Days 31." The cover, rendered in Sim and Gerhard's characteristically rich black-and-white linework, presents a quietly unsettling scene: a figure in old-fashioned layered clothing crouches or collapses on a parquet floor, pressed against a low cabinet, while a tall, shadowed door looms in the background. There's a stillness to the image — the circular rug, the deep woodgrain textures, the solitary hunched form — that carries real emotional weight as Cerebus inches toward its conclusion.