Now #2

Fantagraphics' Now anthology series continues with its second issue, featuring a cover by Christian Rex van Minnen that stops you cold: a fur-draped figure with elaborate red hair, ornate hair accessories, and vivid theatrical makeup clutches what appears to be a colorful floral or feathered object, all rendered in a richly shadowed, old-master style that feels simultaneously baroque and unsettling. The painterly realism and quietly strange details — a tattoo, the wild burst of color at the mouth — make this 2018 anthology's exterior a bold statement of intent for the experimental comics within.