The Unwritten #48

Few covers in 2013 matched the haunting beauty Yuko Shimizu brought to The Unwritten #48 — a crimson-cloaked figure bearing a staff and wearing a rabbit's skull descends a monumental stone staircase into some subterranean depths, flanked by towering dark walls and billowing, intricately rendered clouds. The deep reds and stark black-and-white create an atmosphere that feels genuinely mythic, perfectly suited to the second chapter of "Orpheus in the Underworld." Mike Carey and Peter Gross's Vertigo series continues to pull from the deepest wells of storytelling tradition, and this issue promises to keep that descent compelling.