The Books of Magic #74

This penultimate chapter of Vertigo's long-running magical saga carries a cover by MW Kaluta that's genuinely striking in its dreamlike layering — a dark-haired young man in sunglasses dominates the center, while grotesque grinning creatures loom above him and multiple identical figures in orange populate the foreground, all threaded together by an unsettling sense of fractured identity. Subtitled "Being Mr. Wrong," the story is written and drawn by Peter Gross, with inking assists from Ryan Kelly and Barbara Schulz, giving the interiors a fitting intimacy for this closing arc. Issue #74 from 2000 finds The Books of Magic in its mature final stretch, and Kaluta's surreal, carnival-mirror composition makes a compelling case for picking this one up.