Artifice #[nn]

Winona Nelson's painted cover for this 2013 AMW Comics release is a gut-punch of tension: a young man in white is being dragged away by a swarm of armored riot officers while a woman in a green jacket desperately stretches her hand toward his, their fingertips barely touching amid the crush. The composition — two vulnerable figures engulfed by an overwhelming wall of dark helmets and grasping hands — conveys a real sense of urgency and human connection under siege. Artifice makes a striking visual case for itself right from the cover.