Loïs #3 - 'Le Code Noir'.
Olivier Pâques is a Belgian comic artist and illustrator, who started his career drawing the historical comic series 'Loïs' (2003-2015) for Jacques Martin. Since then, he has worked on comic books about Leonardo da Vinci and Freemasonry for the publishing house Glénat, and on projects for some smaller imprints.
Early life and career
Olivier Pâques was born in 1977 in the Brussels suburb of Uccle, and, starting in 1996, spent four years studying at the Institut Saint-Luc in the Belgian capital. His neighbor was the comic artist Pascal Zanon, who introduced him to Jacques Martin, the Franco-Belgian master of historical comic series. Joining Martin as his student and assistant, Pâques' first assignment was assisting Christophe Simon on the backgrounds of two albums in the contemporary detective series 'Lefranc' (2001-2002).
Loïs #4 - 'Monsieur, frère du Roi'.
Loïs
After this apprenticeship, Martin asked him to illustrate 'Loïs', a series about a young painter at the court of Louis XIV in Versailles. Pâques quickly settled on a classical drawing style, specializing in the detailed depiction of boats. His drawings clearly echo the work of his tutor, but also of comic artists like Marc-Renier, Félicísimo Coria and Jacques Denoël.
In 2004, the first album of 'Loïs', 'Le Roi-Soleil' (Casterman, 2003), already earned him the Prix d'Avenir for most promising artist at the Saint-Gilles comics festival. Pâques made another album in collaboration with Martin, after which Patrick Weber gradually took over the writing duties. In 2013, Pierre Valmour in turn succeeded Weber from the 6th album on. Olivier Pâques also provided the illustrations for the first installment of the educational spin-off series 'Les Voyages de Loïs' (2006), which dealt with the history of Versailles during the reign of Louis XIII. The second installment of the collection (2010) dealt with Portugal and was drawn by the Portuguese illustrator Luís Diferr.
Les Grands Peintres - 'Léonard de Vinci'.
Solo career
After fifteen years working on the Jacques Martin series, Olivier Pâques has been working on additional projects for the publishing house Glénat and some smaller imprints. In 2015, he collaborated with writer Patrick Weber again on a comics biography of Leonardo da Vinci for the Glénat collection 'Les Grands Peintres'. In 2020, Olivier Pâques illustrated the second volume of Didier Convard's collective comics project about the history of Freemasonry, 'L'Épopée de la Franc-maçonnerie' at the publishing house Glénat.
He additionally did the storyboard art for the science fiction comic series 'Safari Rouge' (2020), written by Didier Schmitt and drawn by Ava Dobrynine and Thomas Rome for Weyrich Édition. With writer Bruno Fermier, he made a full-color adaptation of the historical novel 'Le Diffamé' (Nouveau Monde Éditions, 2024) by the novelist Thierry Joumard des Achards.
In addition to his comics projects, Olivier Pâques has been working as an expert consultant for producing illustrations for the European Space Agency (ESA).
'Le Diffamé' (2024).