Bakelandt #46

The long-running Belgian adventure series returns with its 46th installment, "De Duivelsmachine," and the cover sets a beautifully atmospheric scene: a red-haired young woman in period dress gestures toward a sprawling historic riverside city, its Gothic spires and stone bridge stretching across the water, while Bakelandt himself looks on from horseback, a second horse beside him. Hec Leemans delivers a painterly, inviting composition that captures the scale and charm of the historical world this series inhabits so well. Whether the "devil's machine" of the title lurks somewhere in that picturesque cityscape is a tantalizing question this 2010 album is eager to answer.