Murena #8

The eighth chapter of Dufaux and Delaby's acclaimed Roman historical series arrives with a cover that speaks in hushed, ominous tones: a human skull rests at the foot of marble steps streaked with a dark trail of blood, beneath the shadow of a towering column. Philippe Delaby's cover art is strikingly spare yet deeply atmospheric, letting that single bone and those crimson stains carry the full weight of foreboding. "Revanche des cendres" — Revenge of the Ashes — promises a reckoning, and this 2010 Dargaud release makes clear that Murena's world of imperial Rome remains as brutal and beautiful as ever.