Sweet Tooth #9

Jeff Lemire's unsettling cover for issue #9 of Sweet Tooth says everything without a word: the antlered boy Gus huddles alone in a dark hollow underground, while above him a lone figure stands among bare, skeletal trees — and looming over it all are three enormous red masked faces that seem to watch from the shadows with cold, patient menace. The layered composition, with blood-red root-like tendrils connecting the underground and the surface world, perfectly captures the series' atmosphere of vulnerability and dread. "In Captivity Part 4" promises more of the post-apocalyptic tension that made this 2010 Vertigo series one of the most quietly haunting books on the stands.