Loveless #8

Vertigo's gritty post-Civil War series Loveless reaches its eighth issue with a cover by Marcelo Frusin that pulls no punches: a long-haired figure in a wide-brimmed hat stands over a fallen soldier in Confederate uniform, pistol in hand, blood streaking the tree behind him as firelight glows through a smoky wood. Brian Azzarello's unflinching writing and Danijel Žeželj's stark interior art make this one of Vertigo's more quietly savage ongoing westerns of 2006. If morally complex frontier storytelling is your thing, "Warn Down" looks like exactly the kind of chapter that earns the "Suggested for Mature Readers" label.