Le Muret #[nn]

Published by Casterman in 2013, Le Muret brings together writer Céline Fraipont and artist Pierre Bailly for what promises to be a quietly powerful story. The cover — drawn and inked by Bailly — sets a contemplative mood immediately: a young person in dark, casual clothes sits alone on a low stone wall, cigarette smoke curling upward, a backpack at their side and a bottle nearby, their posture caught somewhere between defiance and melancholy. It's a small, carefully observed scene that speaks volumes before a single page is turned.