The Birth Caul #[nn]

Against a striking teal background alive with dark radiating stripes, Eddie Campbell's cover presents two unsettling faces — a pale, closed-eyed sculptural visage below and a fragmented, hollow-eyed peach-toned mask above — creating an atmosphere that feels simultaneously intimate and otherworldly. The Birth Caul is a 1999 collaboration between writer Alan Moore and artist/inker/letterer Eddie Campbell, the pair bringing their considerable combined talents to what the evocative title alone suggests is deeply personal territory. Campbell's painted cover work here is quietly arresting, the kind of image that invites a second and third look before you've even opened the book.