(A)mère #[nn]

Raphael Terrier's *(A)mère*, published by La Boîte à Bulles in 2004, announces itself with a raw, expressive urgency — the cover's loose, scratchy ink linework depicts a figure curled in a chair near a door, rendered with an emotional intensity that feels almost confessional. The title's clever parenthetical — collapsing "amère" (bitter) and "mère" (mother) into a single charged word — hints at a deeply personal, complex exploration of maternity and feeling. It's the kind of Franco-Belgian graphic work that trusts its art to speak quietly but with real weight.