Portrait of Mademoiselle X

Jo Chen has provided a series of striking and beautifully finished covers for Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comics, and all I’ve done is poke fun at Buffy’s apparent height, or Willow’s strange wardrobe.

So I thought that I’d point out the virtues of the latest Chen cover to be posted, as part of Dark Horse’s solicitations for October. The composition’s a little awkward, but Chen has caught the faces perfectly, applying just the right amount of exaggeration to Faith’s hooded eyes and cynical mouth (and perhaps a little more exaggeration to her bust). But what I really like is the way that, for a story about Faith infiltrating high society, Chen has nicely evoked the spirit of John Singer Sargent in the black dress and dark pearly background. Classy stuff. Or possibly extreme kitsch. You decide.