The Books of Magic #66

Peter Gross pulls triple duty as writer, artist, and inker on this late-1999 Vertigo entry, opening the story arc "A Day, a Night & a Dream." Charles Vess's cover art frames four figures — a brooding figure at the top, a green-haired woman with mystical markings pressing her hands to her face, a bespectacled young man, and a curly-haired girl — set against a soft blue crowd of spectral beings and creatures with glowing red eyes that surrounds a shadowy manor in the background. The contrast between the intimate warmth of those four faces and the eerie throng beyond them makes for a quietly unsettling image that captures the series' signature blend of wonder and unease.