L'enfant penchée

L'enfant penchée (literally, The Leaning Child) is a graphic novel by Belgian comic artists François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters, the sixth volume of their ongoing Les Cités Obscures series.

Mary von Rathen, daughter of an industrial magnate family of the city of Mylos, lives a willful and fanciful childhood, in sheer contrast to her pragmatic and businesslike father and brother.

A newspaper editor takes notice of her condition and advises her to visit the renowned scientist and inventor Axel Wappendorf in the hope of seeking a cure.

Mary finds Wappendorf at the Mont Michelson observatory, where he and a team of researchers are constructing a crewed spacecraft to attempt spaceflight to a theoretical planet called "Antinea".

While struggling to add a female figure to the painting, he passes through the walls of the house and emerges on the same sphere where Mary waits, where he transforms into an ink drawing version of himself.

Mary accepts the responsibility of succeeding her father among the Mylos oligarchy, and becomes an influential figure in enacting liberalizing reforms credited with restoring the "grandeur" of the city.