Chiaroscuro #9

The ninth chapter of DC Vertigo's Chiaroscuro: The Private Lives of Leonardo da Vinci arrives with a cover that commands attention — a long-bearded elder figure holds a human skull while a second figure, torso bearing rendered anatomical detail of organs and musculature, looms behind him in the candlelit gloom. The photorealistic cover composition by Stephen John Phillips and Richard Bruning gives the series its characteristically eerie, Renaissance-inflected mood, blending mortality and the spirit of anatomical inquiry that defines this mature-readers series. With Pat McGreal, David Rawson, and Chas Truog continuing the story subtitled "The Deluge," this March 1996 issue keeps Vertigo's most intellectually ambitious biographical series in compelling form.