Les chroniques du règne de Nicolas Ier #[nn]

A sharp political satire dressed in Napoleonic splendor, this French graphic album from 2012 presents a gleefully irreverent vision of modern power: a contemporary figure in a bicorne hat rides a rearing white horse in deliberate echo of the great imperial portraits. The visual wit is immediate and pointed, blending the grandeur of 19th-century iconography with unmistakably modern features for a comedic effect that needs no caption. With Patrick Rambaud (de l'Académie Goncourt) and Olivier Grojnowski collaborating under the Grasset/Drugstore imprint, this is bande dessinée political commentary at its most playfully audacious.