Royal City #2

Jeff Lemire's Royal City continues with this second issue, and the cover sets a quietly unsettling tone — two battered, blood-spattered men linger outside a bar, one smoking with a thousand-yard stare, the other slumped and hollow-eyed beneath a neon sign advertising drinks and a crown. Lemire's loose, watercolor-tinged linework gives the scene a raw, lived-in vulnerability that feels equal parts small-town realism and slow-burning unease. If the series opener caught your attention, this 2017 Image release makes a strong case for staying put in Royal City.