The Invisibles #14

Sean Phillips's haunting cover for this November 1995 Vertigo entry presents an inverted, charcoal-rendered figure — arms raised, chest bearing a vivid red lipstick kiss mark, and a glowing heart cradled near the chin — an image that feels simultaneously tender and unsettling. The stark contrast between the monochromatic figure and those bursts of red gives the whole composition an eerie, ritualistic quality perfectly suited to Grant Morrison and Jill Thompson's "She-Man, Part Two: Day of Nine Dogs." If you've been following this run, issue #14 looks like exactly the kind of quietly strange chapter that keeps The Invisibles so compulsively readable.