Jour J #26

Jour J takes its alternate-history premise somewhere genuinely surprising with issue #26, La Ballade des Pendus. The cover sets the scene vividly: a grand elephant bearing a canopied howdah strides through a medieval European city street — flanked by armored knights and presided over by a richly dressed African ambassador — while a Gothic cathedral looms in the background, hinting at a plague-ravaged 1473 that history never knew. Duval, Pécau, and Farkas deliver what looks to be one of the series' most visually ambitious entries, blending diplomatic intrigue and alternate-medieval spectacle in a single unforgettable image.