Le Tueur #2

The second volume of Matz and Luc Jacamon's acclaimed French thriller series opens with a striking close-up of a reptile's eye — luminous yellow-green, slit-pupiled, half-hidden among shadowy reeds — an image that radiates cold, patient menace. "L'engrenage" (The Gears) promises a story about being caught in an inescapable mechanism, and Jacamon's cover illustration sets that mood with quiet, unsettling precision. Published by Casterman in 2000, this is moody Franco-Belgian noir at its most visually assured.