L'Ancien Temps #1

From Joann Sfar comes this atmospheric opener to L'Ancien Temps, subtitled Le roi n'embrasse pas. The cover plunges us into a murky, primeval world rendered in deep greens and shadow, where a young red-haired boy clutching a staff stands surrounded by an unsettling congregation of fantastical beings — a towering troll-like giant, a luminous tree-spirit woman, a wide-eyed creature peering from the canopy, and strange animal forms lurking in the undergrowth near a skull. Published by Gallimard in 2009, it's an immediately compelling invitation into a myth-soaked ancient world where the boundary between the natural and the supernatural feels thrillingly, dangerously thin.