Desperate Times #3

Chris Eliopoulos's Desperate Times keeps its sharp, self-aware humor front and center in issue #3 from 1998. The cover — penciled and inked by Eliopoulos and Erik Larsen — cheekily lampoons cheesecake comics by placing two exaggeratedly rendered pin-up figures in the foreground while two cartoon everyman characters stand atop them, conducting a running speech-bubble debate about what they're even allowed to call what's on the cover. It's a genuinely funny piece of visual meta-commentary that signals exactly the kind of deadpan, pop-culture-savvy comedy waiting inside with "Parts.