Nous, les morts #3

The third volume of Darko Macan's haunting French-language series arrives with a cover that immediately commands attention: a lone armored warrior — sword at his side, ornate robes suggesting imperial China — floats weightlessly above a surging mass of the dead, their faces and reaching hands rendered in rich sepia and gold. Kordey, Yana, and Vitković's artwork gives Le Céleste Empire a monumental, almost ceremonial gravity, the pale negative space above throwing every anguished detail of the crowd below into sharp relief. If the first two installments drew you in, this 2015 Delcourt entry makes a strong visual promise that the series' exploration of mortality is heading somewhere vast and ancient.