Le petit Bourreau de Montfleury #[nn]

A quietly unsettling midnight scene sets the tone for this French graphic album from Éditions Sarbacane: a stout, red-hooded figure sits brooding beneath a gnarled tree in a moonlit cemetery, while a small wide-eyed creature hangs upside-down from a branch above. Marty Planchais brings a darkly whimsical atmosphere to Le Petit Bourreau de Montfleury, balancing something genuinely eerie with an almost childlike charm that makes the image hard to look away from. At 12.50 EUR, this 2016 release feels like a storybook that wandered somewhere it probably shouldn't — and is all the more intriguing for it.