Lower East Side Story #5 shows tensions building to the breaking point: a previously unknown disease is now running rampant, and the outlook is not good. The neighborhood sees the first after shocks of crack cocaine taking hold of its first victims, and Sponge may survive from Red's brutal attack.

This is the next chapter of Pete Friedrich's remarkable story taking place in New York in the 1980s, a city at the brink of bankruptcy and total collapse.

This special double issue features 44 pages of art plus a color cover, with colors by Michael Neno.