The Dreaming #44

Dave McKean's cover for this January 2000 Vertigo issue bathes a wide-eyed young figure in deep blue-green tones, her expression caught somewhere between wonder and unease as she holds a pale lily blossom close to her lips — dry leaves and brambles crowding the top of the frame like remnants of a waking world bleeding into dreams. The subtitle "Homesick" lends the image a quietly aching quality that suits Vertigo's mature, atmospheric sensibility perfectly. With Caitlín R. Kiernan writing and Christian Højgaard on interior art, this opening chapter of "Trinket" promises the kind of lyrical, unsettling storytelling that made The Dreaming such a distinctive corner of the DC universe in 2000.