Hard Looks #2

Andrew Vachss brings his hard-edged noir sensibility to Dark Horse Comics in this second issue of Hard Looks, with "Value Received" adapted by Chris Warner. Warren Pleece's cover art fills the frame with three faces pressed unnervingly close — a shadowed figure on the left, a pale-faced man at center whose eyes carry a cold, calculating weight, and a wide-eyed figure to the right clutching what appears to be a weapon — conveying a suffocating tension before you've read a single page. It's a striking piece of 1992 crime comics that wears its grim atmosphere confidently on its sleeve.