Dark Horse Presents #119

Dark Horse Presents #119 spotlights Trout with a cover by Troy Nixey that feels like a curiosity cabinet come to life — an ornate wooden frame holds an arresting array of small panels: a mass of entwined figures, a wide-eyed ghostly face, a peculiar goblin portrait, and strange carved or mechanical imagery, all fastened together with purple buttons. The left margin previews the issue's other strips, including Evan Dorkin's Hectic Planet, Art Adams' Monkeyman and O'Brien, and Predator. Nixey's painterly, slightly unsettling aesthetic makes this 1997 anthology issue genuinely hard to put down before you've even opened the cover.