"Witches" by Daisuke Igarashi, harmony of fate

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The collection of short stories about the figure of the magician shines with its atmosphere and the finesse of the Japanese artist's lines.

The shaman at the heart of Daisuke Igarashi's work, published in 2004 in Japan. (Delcourt Tonkam)

Daisuke Igarashi's work is embodied first and foremost by the territories it examines. By a strange twist of the mind, we rethink each of his books by situating them. The Japanese countryside in Petite forêt ; a coastal village for Les Enfants de la mer ; Angoulême and the Panshir valley in the esoteric Saru. Sorcières, which is published today by Delcourt – after being published by Casterman in 2006 and 2007 – comes to life in the bustle of Istanbul's markets. Le Fuseau, the first thriller in this series of short stories woven around the figure of the shaman, fortune teller, cartomancer, and spellcaster, features a young nomad confronted with a centuries-old curse. Istanbul materializes as the point of friction between the din of the modern, rational world and ancestral whispers.

If Igarashi is one of the most impressive artists in Japanese comics, it is probably because he manages like no one else to write so close to the senses. He shows what we drink, what we eat, he gives us a sense of the false calm of a residential neighborhood and the din of a crowded city center. Later, in a short story set in the