Cerebus #83

Framed within a doorway like a painting within a painting, this February 1986 issue of Cerebus presents a quietly tense tableau: a young, red-haired man gripping a staff stands in a lit threshold while Cerebus the aardvark looks up at him from below, the surrounding stonework rendered in Gerhard's richly textured detail. The dripping-red title "Touch Not the Priestess" adds an edge of menace to what might otherwise be a composed, almost meditative image. Dave Sim and Gerhard's cover work here is confident and atmospheric, drawing you into whatever uneasy encounter awaits inside.