The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec Volume 2" by Jacques Tardi

"The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec comes back!   Volume 2: "The Mad Scientist" and "Mummies  on Parade."   Jacques Tardi is my favorite living comic book artist from France,  and of course I have favorites in Japan, but let's not confuse categories and things.  Volume 2 is more mood narratives that fall in the French pulp genre then anything else.  Things can happen any moment and time - and our hero Adele seems to never have a night's sleep - with assassins  breaking into her apartment, and strange phone calls in the middle of the night.

Jacques Tardi

Adele is a Detective of sorts who studies the occult and secret organizations and has a thing for mummies.  She and a group of individuals and creatures make strong impressions on the landscape of turn of the century Paris.  And it is Paris that is really the star of the series.  Always mysterious and dangerous (especially in the middle of the night) and yet hauntingly beautiful.  And with the addition of a tight narration makes this series into a graphic novel masterpiece.   Volume 3 is coming out in 2013, and that is the only tragic part of the series.  The waiting...