Scalped #26

Jason Aaron and Davide Furnò continue "High Lonesome," the five-part arc of Vertigo's acclaimed prairie noir, with a cover by Jock that says everything through restraint — a lone figure grips the bars of a tiny cell window set into a crumbling, weathered wall, staring out with grim intensity. The composition is almost unbearably bleak, that small rectangle of a face in an ocean of decay capturing the series' recurring tension between confinement and desperate longing for escape. The Philadelphia Daily News quote emblazoned at the top — "One of the best comics ever created" — feels entirely earned by an image this quietly powerful.