The Exchange (Alpha)

Assia Donkova is a young Muscovite, idealistic and very attractive. As manager of an art gallery, she visits Paris museums and exhibitions in search of new Western talents. In front of a Monet work one day, she meets painter Julian Morgan. Very quickly the young woman falls under his spell, and they meet again. But is Julian only an aspiring painter? Why does he spy on Assia's slightest moves? And what are the mysterious appointments Assia keeps? Russian mafia and powerful financial organizations are at the centre of a diabolical machination... one that could eventually present grave danger to the new global balance...

Born in 1961 and departed in 1996, Pascal Renard was decorated several times in cinema, "the 7th art." From the stories that he intended for film, he often created scripts of graphic novels. His spellbinding intrigues and tightly written plots, worthy of the best American action movies, are remarkable. With Youri Jigounov, a young Muscovite artist, Renard created the Alpha series in 1995; the first episode, The Exchange, was published in 1996 by Le Lombard. Realistic, smart and efficient, the drawings of Jigounov have already made him one of the big names of the graphic novel world.