Sandman #52

DC Vertigo's Sandman #52 arrives with one of Dave McKean's hauntingly atmospheric covers — a deeply atmospheric, blue-drenched photomontage where a pale barn owl perches watchfully above a ghostly, partially dissolved human figure, surrounded by fragments of rooms, wires, and scattered imagery that dissolves into shadow. This is the second installment of the "Worlds' End" arc, written by Neil Gaiman with interior art by Bryan Talbot, John Watkiss, and Mark Buckingham, promising the kind of layered, literary storytelling the series does so well. McKean's unsettling visual poetry makes this cover as dreamlike and thought-provoking as anything else on the 1993 stands.