I'm jumping around a lot, partly due to my magpie nature but also because I don't want to focus on just one or two publishers for too long. I haven't finished commenting on the DC and Marvel covers for June, and haven't even started the Image offerings, but I don't want to feel forced to sprint toward some imaginary deadline.

Anyway, Mouse Guard #2 has been on my "to-do" Post It for the past week. It's so simple and understated, and perfect for David Petersen's charming series about the regiment sworn to protect the mice territories in a vaguely medieval world. There's a children's book quality to the comic -- not just in the subject matter, but in the eight-inch square format. Petersen preserves that feel by moving the UPC box and publisher's logo to the back cover (you can't see that here, but that's what was done with Issue 1, released last month by Archaia Studios Press).

It's the little details that make this image: the strain/determination of Conrad the mouse as he lifts the enormous crab; the fish hook he uses as a weapon; and, most of all, the tracks Conrad's wooden leg leaves in the sand.

It's not a flashy cover, but it doesn't need to be. It's just ... right.