Hellblazer #149

Hellblazer's "Hard Time" arc reaches its fourth chapter with this striking Vertigo entry from 2000, written by Brian Azzarello with art by Richard Corben. Tim Bradstreet's cover presents the grim world of incarceration in three stark horizontal panels: two stern corrections officers stare out from above a debris-strewn, smoke-tinged prison corridor, while a battered, brooding man sits slumped at the bottom — the whole composition framed by prison bars that bleed across the image. It's a moody, atmospheric composition that captures the weight and claustrophobia of life behind bars.