La Cordée du Mont Rose #[nn]

A roped team of mountaineers picks their way across a high alpine ridge on this striking cover, the lead climber silhouetted against a pale violet sky with a headlamp cutting through the cold air — the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Mont Rose massif looming in the distance below them. Olivier Balez's bold, graphic style reduces the scene to clean shapes and a restrained palette, giving the composition a tense, elemental atmosphere that perfectly captures the precariousness of high-altitude climbing. Published by Les Arènes in 2011, this French graphic work promises an intimate, gripping look at the mountain and the people bound together by the rope.