The Fade Out #2

Sean Phillips's cover for The Fade Out #2 sets an unsettling tone immediately: a suited man in a wide-brimmed fedora holds a lit cigarette to his bandage-wrapped face, his identity completely obscured, while streaks of deep red bleed down beside him against a stark white background. It's a striking image that captures the noir atmosphere of Ed Brubaker and Phillips's Hollywood murder story with quiet, confident dread. If this 2014 Image series has your attention, issue two — subtitled "The Death of Me" — is exactly the kind of second chapter that rewards the commitment.