Terminal City #4

Issue four of nine in Dean Motter and Michael Lark's stylish Vertigo series presents a cover that oozes retro-futurist cool. Motter's own pencils and inks place a mustachioed, confident figure in a sharp blue suit and crimson vest front and center — hands on hips, cigarette dangling — while a crowd of burly, watchful men looms in the warm amber background of what appears to be a grand art-deco venue. The visual tension between the dapper central figure and the rough company behind him captures everything that makes Terminal City such a distinctive corner of the 1996 Vertigo lineup.