Shaft: Imitation of Life #4

David F. Walker and Dietrich Smith's Shaft: Imitation of Life reaches its fourth chapter, "All the World's a Stage," and this 2016 Dynamite release keeps the tension wound tight. Matthew Clark's cover art places Shaft in a gritty close-up — his expression cool and wary — against the glowing signage of a seedy XXX movie theater, the whole image soaked in warm, period-perfect amber tones. It's a street-level snapshot of a man navigating a world where the line between performance and reality gets dangerously blurry.