The Books of Magic #69

MW Kaluta's cover for this February 2000 Vertigo issue is a wonderfully unsettling piece of folk-horror whimsy: a wide-eyed, bespectacled face — unmistakably Tim Hunter — looms enormous in the foreground, his expression caught somewhere between alarm and bewilderment as small red imp-like creatures poke and prod at him with sticks. Perched above it all, a wild-haired figure clutches a wand or rod amid a tangle of wooden beams, surveying the chaos below. The story title "Cauldrons & Kettles" fits the bubbling, bewitched atmosphere perfectly, with Peter Gross and Vince Locke bringing the interior magic to life inside.