Sandman #40

Dave McKean's eerie, photographic-collage cover for Sandman #40 sets an unsettling tone: a figure draped in rich red robes bears a great bird's head with a single vivid blue eye, cradling an animal skull, while a dark puppet-like doll perches above amid scattered toys and a gnarled branch. The mirrored, reversed title lettering adds another layer of strangeness to the whole tableau. Written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Jill Thompson and Vince Locke, this August 1992 installment — "The Parliament of Rooks" — promises the kind of dream-logic atmosphere that made Sandman one of DC's most distinctive mature-readers titles of its era.