The Dreaming #29

Dave McKean's haunting painted cover for this Vertigo title sets an appropriately unsettling mood — a pale, otherworldly child-like figure cradles itself amid swirling tendrils and shadowy forms, with a skeletal or withered figure looming in the background against deep, murky tones. The Dreaming #29 brings Peter Hogan and Peter Snejbjerg to the third chapter of "Many Mansions," with "Ashes" as its evocative subtitle suggesting transformation and aftermath. It's the kind of late-'90s Vertigo package — dreamlike cover art, a thoughtfully titled story arc — that rewards readers who appreciate comics willing to sit in the strange and contemplative.