I had forgotten about those ads, so thank you for posting them! The smirk that Dream has in the first one, coupled with his red eyes, does evoke quite a bit of horror. Which is somewhat in contrast to how we first encounter Dream in the comic itself (trapped in his globe). As to the versions we are working off of, we both have collections from the late 90s and early 2000s as well as the Omnibus. I think the Omnibus has the same re-done art as you are seeing in the Absolute collections. In some later episodes we do talk some about the difference that some of the coloring makes (it can change the tone in many panels, I think), although I agree with you that generally the re-color tends to look better in many instances.