Hôtel Particulier #[nn]

Sorel's dreamy watercolor palette sets the tone immediately on this Casterman album, where a young woman perches atop a Parisian roofscape, a cat nestled beside her as she gazes upward into billowing, sepia-tinted clouds. The composition has a quiet, melancholic poetry to it — chimneys and worn stone facades fading softly into the haze, the city feeling both intimate and vast. Guillaume Sorel handles every line, ink, and wash himself, and the result is a 2013 album that feels less like a comic cover and more like a painting you'd want to sit with.