Ascension #17

Volume 17 of Shin'ichi Sakamoto's mountain-climbing manga — adapted from Jiro Nitta's novel — delivers a hauntingly beautiful cover that says everything about the brutal poetry of high-altitude survival. A young climber in a pale blue jacket is shown battered and windswept, dark hair whipping across his downturned face, surrounded by icy branches and swirling snow that seem to press in from every direction. The atmosphere Sakamoto conjures here is at once exhausted and quietly defiant, making this 2014 Delcourt/Tonkam volume a compelling addition to one of manga's most visually striking mountaineering series.