Le Monde de Milo #1

From Marazano and Ferreira comes this striking Franco-Belgian album that splits its world in two — above the waterline, a boy crouches cautiously on a sunlit rocky shore, while beneath the surface lurks a shadowy underwater realm teeming with strange creatures, including a grinning, wide-eyed monster cradling a tiny figure in its clawed hands. Dargaud's Le Monde de Milo immediately establishes a tone that balances childhood wonder with genuine unease, its split-composition cover alone doing wonderful work in suggesting that the world beneath is just as vast — and far more dangerous — than the one above.