The Books of Magic #41

DC's Vertigo imprint brought a quietly unsettling sensibility to its fantasy titles in 1997, and this forty-first issue of The Books of Magic is a fine example. Sherilyn Van Valkenburgh's cover art presents two figures in an intimate yet uneasy composition — a wide-eyed young person whose face is half-obscured by flame-tinged hands, and a pale, dark-haired woman facing outward with a hand raised between them, as if warding something off or concealing it. Titled "Nothing Up My Sleeve," this issue by writer John Ney Rieber and artist Peter Gross promises the kind of layered, atmospheric storytelling that made this series a standout on the Vertigo line.