Mille Visages #1

The first volume of Mille Visages opens with a striking duality: a stern, sharp-featured man looms large against a blood-red sky and fortress-like architecture, while below him the wide-open plains stretch out beneath rolling clouds, where a rider on horseback drives cattle across the horizon. Subtitled London/Dakota, this 2001 French-language album from Les Humanoïdes Associés promises a story that moves between very different worlds — the brooding and the expansive, the confined and the free. The work of Males and Thirault, it's a beautifully composed introduction to what looks like a richly atmospheric saga.