Space Circus #3

The big top comes to life in wild, chaotic fashion on Sergio Aragonés's cover for this third issue of Dark Horse's Space Circus miniseries — a terrified boy sprints across the circus ring while a pack of enormous, sharp-toothed tiger-like creatures lunge at him from the foreground, as a ringmaster figure looks on from the right and a colorful stampede of clowns and creatures spills through a doorway to the left. Balloons drift above a massive audience of what appears to be hundreds of wide-eyed alien spectators packed into the stands, giving the whole scene Aragonés's signature densely layered, MAD Magazine-style energy. With Mark Evanier writing, Stan Sakai lettering, and Tom Luth's colors bringing it all to vibrant life, "The Clown Horse" looks like a delightfully absurd adventure you won't want to miss.