Fables #85

Part 7 of 9 in "The Great Fables Crossover," this August 2009 Vertigo issue arrives at a pivotal point in the nine-part saga, written by Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges with interior art by Tony Akins. Joao Ruas's cover is a striking bird's-eye tableau of doll-like children crowded around a card table scattered with playing cards and poker chips, their glassy, slightly uncanny expressions giving the scene an unsettling fairy-tale tension. It's a fittingly strange and compelling image for a series that has always found the eerie lurking just beneath the storybook surface.