The Walking Dead #9

Two small figures huddle around a desperate campfire in the pitch darkness, their fragile circle of light the only thing holding back the shadows — and looming from those shadows, a mass of decaying undead faces press hungrily forward. Charlie Adlard's stark black-and-white artwork, with Cliff Rathburn's selective toning, makes this 2009 Cross Cult edition of The Walking Dead: Im finsteren Tal feel genuinely unsettling from the very first glance. The contrast between that tiny, warm flame and the encroaching horde captures exactly the kind of quiet dread that makes this series so compelling.