Sandman #20

Part four of the celebrated "Dream Country" arc, this October 1990 issue closes out the storyline with "Façade," written by Neil Gaiman with interior art by Colleen Doran and inks by Malcolm Jones III. Dave McKean's cover is a haunting study in greens and shadows — a pale, mask-like face dominates the composition, surrounded by fragmentary, half-dissolved human faces that seem to drift and dissolve like memories, while reaching hands emerge ghostlike from the murky background. It's an unsettling, painterly image that perfectly captures the series' atmosphere of beauty threaded through with quiet dread.