Nocturno #[nn]

Two children stand in a bleak, windswept field — a dark-haired girl and a pale, bespectacled blonde clutching a sword — while a looming, skeletal creature with multiple hollow-eyed skulls rises ominously behind them. Tony Sandoval's cover art for Nocturno radiates that rare blend of eerie atmosphere and quiet courage, rendered in muted, earthy tones that feel simultaneously haunting and tender. Published by Editions Paquet in 2012, this is the kind of dark-fantasy graphic work that draws you in with its striking visual poetry.