Criminal #4

A Criminal collection from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, "Bad Night Part One" opens with a cover that immediately sets the tone: a young woman wrapped in a pink sheet, clutching it to herself with one hand while a pistol hangs loosely in the other, her expression caught somewhere between defiance and unease against a moody watercolor wash of blues and purples. Sean Phillips's cover art is intimate and unsettling in equal measure, the kind of image that makes you want to know exactly how things got to this point. With an introduction by crime novelist Ken Bruen, this 2009 Titan edition promises noir atmosphere at its most compellingly personal.