Houppeland #1

A "Joyeux Noël" banner stretches across a snow-dusted street as a grim, heavily armed Santa Claus dominates the foreground — pipe clenched in his teeth, expression all business — while a military truck packed with soldiers rumbles through the wintry background behind him. This opening volume of Houppeland, published by Dupuis under the Aire Libre imprint in 1997, sets a darkly comic, subversive tone from the very first glance. If your holiday reading taste runs toward the absurd and the unsettling, this is a very promising place to start.