Sweet Tooth #15

Jeff Lemire's spare, striking cover for this January 2011 Vertigo issue says everything without saying a word — a bloodied, looming man stands over a small antlered child crouched on the ground, the stark black-and-white composition punctuated only by vivid splashes of red. The raw, scratchy linework Lemire brings to "Animal Armies 3" gives the whole scene a haunting, almost feverish tension that's hard to shake. A mature, post-apocalyptic series at the height of its unsettling power.