Sandman #26

Part five of the celebrated "Season of Mists" arc, this 1991 DC issue presents a cover by Dave McKean that's as dreamlike and unsettling as the series itself — a richly layered composition in deep reds and blacks featuring a large ornate key, a nautilus shell, mechanical clock-like forms, and ghostly, half-submerged faces emerging from the shadows. The cover's curious subtitle — promising diplomacy, blackmail, bedrooms, and "an unusual recipe for sausages" — perfectly captures the wit and strangeness that makes this series unlike anything else on the stands. With Neil Gaiman writing alongside interior art by Kelley Jones and George Pratt, Sandman #26 is a striking artifact of early-'90s comics at their most ambitious.