Ralph Azham #3

Lewis Trondheim's "Noires sont les étoiles" — the third volume of Ralph Azham — arrives from Dupuis in 2012 with a cover that sets an urgent, unsettling tone: a lone figure in a flowing blue-green robe stands amid tall columns of fire, while a dark, turreted city looms behind them wreathed in smoke, and small silhouetted figures tumble chaotically through the ashen sky above. Trondheim's deceptively simple linework makes the contrast between the calm central character and the surrounding chaos all the more striking. If this cover is any indication, the series continues to blend its storybook aesthetic with genuinely dark storytelling.