Can you believe it's October already? Where did the summer go? Well, now that there's a chill in the New York air and Halloween is around the corner, only one word springs to mind. Most of you are thinking "miniskirts," and with the amount of promiscuous costumes that get paraded around on October 31, I don't blame you for that guess. But I was actually thinking about masks. In particular, one very special mask that's the centerpiece of the very first Vertigo Halloween special, THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY HALLOWEEN ANNUAL. First it becomes stuck on Fig's pretty mug like an alien face hugger, but then you'll learn the back story of this mysterious artifact as it weaves its way through time on a journey that encompasses other Vertigo characters - including the venerable John Constantine and the monsterific cast of the upcoming I, Zombie. Did I mention the motley assemblage of creators that put this Frankenstein of an issue together? If names like Bill Willingham, Matt Wagner, Mike Allred, Mark Buckingham, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Matt Sturges, Kevin Nowlan, and Peter Milligan don't put your fingers on a mad dash to your wallet, then you're a flatlining zombie. And as a special treat, you'll get to see what these comics perpetrators have looked like on past Halloweens, in a feature called "Wicked Games." Even better, you'll get to see the super-accurate Dutch girl get-up I was adorned in as an 8-year-old. It very nearly got me sold as child slave labor in downtown Philly. Thanks Mom!