Sandman Mystery Theatre #37

A moody, fog-drenched harbor scene sets the tone for "The Mist Act One," the opening chapter of a four-part arc in this April 1996 installment of DC Vertigo's Sandman Mystery Theatre. The cover — a photorealistic, almost noir-documentary composition by Gavin Wilson and Richard Bruning — shows a docked ship looming through murky haze, with a shadowy figure crouched at the water's edge and a partially visible official seal or document nearby, all underscored by the evocative tagline "…a foggy shroud of deceptions, as death came in with the tides." With Matt Wagner and Steven T. Seagle scripting and Guy Davis on art inside, this mature-readers title continues to deliver the kind of atmospheric, pulp-soaked storytelling that made it one of Vertigo's most distinctively grim corners of 1996.