Black Orchid #14

DC's Vertigo imprint was home to some genuinely haunting visual storytelling in 1994, and this issue of Black Orchid is a fine example. Dave McKean's cover is a layered, dreamlike composition — a shadowy figure in purple looms at left while a luminous, ghostly face emerges from swirling green and dark tones at right, with an ornate circular dial or astronomical device anchoring the center, all evoking a mood of mystery and quiet dread. With Dick Foreman writing, Rebecca Guay on interior art, and the story titled "Glamour's End," this issue promises the kind of atmospheric, mature storytelling that made Vertigo's early run so distinctive.