Fratelli #[nn]

Alessandro Tota's Fratelli, published by Éditions Cornélius in 2011, opens with a quietly evocative cover: two young men — one in glasses and a black shirt, the other leaning back in a white top — stand along a seaside promenade beneath a warm streetlamp, a coastal town glowing softly in the twilight behind them. The mood is intimate and a little bittersweet, perfectly suited to a story whose title means "brothers." It's the kind of graphic novel that draws you in with its stillness before you've even turned the first page.