Szninkiel #3

The third volume of this Polish dark-fantasy series brings writer Jean Van Hamme and artist Grzegorz Rosiński's imaginative world to a brooding close-up on its cover: a masked figure in sweeping black robes reaches upward toward a sword-wielding armored presence looming from above, while a grotesque figure with wild red hair and a ruffled collar lurks nearby, and a pale, blonde young figure rests pensively in the foreground against a worn stone wall. Rosiński's painted cover work — rich in earthy reds and deep shadows — gives the ensemble an almost theatrical, unsettling gravity that feels perfectly suited to a story subtitled "Sąd" (Judgment). If you've been following this series through its 2002 Egmont Polska run, this concluding chapter promises the kind of atmospheric, morally weighted fantasy that Van Hamme and Rosiński do so well together.