La Tour (comics)

La Tour is a graphic novel by Belgian comic artists François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters, the third volume of their ongoing Les Cités Obscures series.

As the story takes place centuries before the other Obscure Cities albums, The Tower exhibits the least connection to steampunk fiction out of the entire series.

Giovanni has been employed for many years as one of many maintainers of an enormous stone edifice called only the Tower, permanently stationed alone within one part of its frame, where he is responsible for repairing failing masonry by perilously navigating beams and columns.

Even as Giovanni diligently performs his job, working long days with little rest and leaving himself disheveled, he notices that his fellow maintainers and the inspectors overseeing them have abandoned their duties.

Sent by Elias on a forbidden path out of the community, Giovanni and Milena travel through myriad regions of the Tower, each abandoned in the ever-upward construction.

By operating a giant pulley, the two manage to descend the centre of the Tower; encountering Elias on their way down, Giovanni lies about the Pioneers to comfort him.

Nothing is shown of subsequent events except a full-length, framed portrait of Giovanni, fully-coloured, groomed and in magisterial robes, accompanied by not Milena but a statue bearing her name.