Fight Club 2 #9

Chuck Palahniuk's sequel series reaches its penultimate issue with a hauntingly quiet cover by David Mack — a young boy in a dark suit gazes up at a large framed painting of a blond, suited adult figure surrounded by swooping black birds, while a single bird perches atop the boy's head and an empty birdcage sits between them. The image carries that distinctly dreamlike, watercolor quality Mack brings to portraiture, layering themes of inheritance and identity without a single act of violence. Cameron Stewart handles the interior art, and together with Palahniuk's writing, this Dark Horse series continues to feel like nothing else on shelves in 2016.