Le Manoir de l'horreur #9

A looming, hollow-eyed face with golden irises and streaks of blood beneath its eyes dominates this 2005 Delcourt volume, gazing down over a forbidding stone manor that sits at the base of the cover like a trap waiting to be sprung. Ochazukenori's artwork strikes a careful balance between manga expressiveness and gothic dread, making the relationship between that haunted visage and the castle below feel genuinely unsettling. If atmospheric horror with a distinctly European manga flavor is your thing, volume nine of Le Manoir de l'horreur delivers that mood in full.