Kaya #9

Wes Craig's Kaya continues its harrowing fantasy adventure with issue #9, and this cover makes the stakes unmistakably clear — a massive, bat-winged creature fills the sky with jaws wide open, its claws clutching a small, helpless figure far above the ground while more of the beasts circle ominously in the distance. The cover copy tells us Kaya has lost her magic arm and is cut off from her allies somewhere in the Poison Lands, while Jin is trapped in a strange nightmare after nearly drowning — two characters in serious trouble at once. Craig's linework, colored in vivid purples and pinks, gives this issue a dreamlike yet genuinely menacing atmosphere that makes it hard to set down.