Books of Magick: Life During Wartime #1

Vertigo's *Books of Magick: Life During Wartime* opens with a cover by Frank Quitely that immediately signals something unsettling and dreamlike: a young man with wire-rimmed glasses lies supine, his dark hair dissolving into a star-flecked void, while disembodied eyeballs float above him like eerie sentinels against a pale, symbol-etched expanse. Si Spencer and Dean Ormston bring this 2005 series to life with Neil Gaiman himself calling their work "captivating" — high praise that feels entirely earned given the surreal atmosphere Quitely conjures here. If you're drawn to dark fantasy where the boundary between the waking world and something stranger grows genuinely thin, this first book is a compelling place to start.