I've tried to get into modern BDs but the ones I've picked up tend to have gorgeous pictures and shallow stories. For instance, the one Moebius comic I tried looked awesome but the story could have fit on a cocktail napkin. A small one. XIII also never grabbed me. Ok, so the amnesiac dude either killed JFK or is just a patsy, and yet I can't seem to care either way. Of course, Asterix and Tintin will always be there but I can't even enjoy those like I used to. I mean, have you seen how racist some of their depictions were? Not to mention the sexism and xenophobia.
Sorry, I don't mean to be relentlessly criticizing French comics. Let me see, I thought a lot of the stories in Metal Hurlant were pretty cool, despite the Conan-style chauvinism. Wait, what was that French comic that Marvel recently translated and published? Not the sci-fi Roman empire one, the one that was an allegorical attack on Bush and neoliberalism. There was a Dirty Dozen suicide squad and the Earth was all blowed up. It started out slow but I really liked it by the second volume.