Cerebus #286

With only a few issues left in the landmark 300-issue run, Cerebus #286 arrives in January 2003 bearing one of its most quietly striking covers — a movie-poster pastiche titled "Chasing YHWH V: The Last Page," with a faint, ghostly face looming in pale violet above a photorealistic garden scene where a small, hunched Cerebus peers out from behind a tree. Cover art by Dave Sim and Ken Sim leans into the cinematic parody with mock-credits and self-aware text blocks that cheekily acknowledge the Graphics Department's attempt at something different. It's a wry, contemplative image that perfectly captures the philosophical mood Dave Sim and Gerhard had been building throughout the "Latter Days" arc.