title: The Extraordinary Adventures of Adle Blanc-Sec Vol. 1: Pterror Over Paris / The Eiffel Tower Demon
author:  Jacques Tardi 
description: Starred Review. Popular in Europe, these historical adventures of a fearless female journalist in belle epoque Paris begins a new reprint series with a fresh English translation. In 1911 Paris, a pterodactyl has hatched and is terrorizing the city. We first meet Adele impersonating a woman she has kidnapped, working on engineering a jailbreak to find stolen funds. Somehow, these plot lines intertwine, along with a gentleman hunter, changing alliances, and various double-crosses. After battling the beast and the events that result, Adele and her circle of adversaries chase a mysterious Assyrian statue of a demon. Tardi's art well deserves the praise that he's a grandmaster of comics. It's detailed, expressive, authentic, and distinctive. His world-building is thorough, the setting established through both background art and scene selection. Frequent recaps keep the reader up to speed, while emphasizing how amusingly convoluted everything quickly becomes. Tardi knows the conventions of this kind of rollicking, complicated adventure, and the story points out how ridiculous they are at the same time it's engaging in them. This oversized volume contains two adventures, with two more due next year. (Dec.) <br />(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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  # The Exiles
  
  
  ### Honore de Balzac
  
  
  ##### Translated by Clara Bell and James Waring
  
      
      
      
  
  ALMAE SORORI
  
  
  In the year 1308 few houses were yet standing on the Island formed by the
  alluvium and sand deposited by the Seine above the Cite, behind the Church of
  Notre-Dame. The first man who was so bold as to build on this strand, then
  liable to frequent floods, was a constable of the watch of the City of Paris,
  who had been able to do some service to their Reverences the Chapter of the
  Cathedral; and in return the Bishop leased him twenty-five perches of land,
  with exemptions from all feudal dues or taxes on the buildings he might erect.
  
  Seven years before the beginning of this narrative, Joseph Tirechair, one of
  the sternest of Paris constables, as his name (Tear Flesh) would indicate,
  had, thanks to his share of the fines collected by him for delinquencies
  committed within the precincts of the Cite, had been able to build a 