Patricia Lyfoung

Born into a family of eight children, Patricia Lyfoung developed a passion for drawing at a very early age, inspired by the shows on Club Dorothée. She received a Diploma specializing in illustration from the Estienne’s School of Applied Arts before enrolling in the animation drawing program at the Gobelins School. This dual training allowed her to begin her career in 2001 as a storyboard assistant at Marathon Animation, where she worked on the hit series Totally Spies! and Martin Mystère. At the same time, she created fanzines and amateur manga before making the shift to comic art in 2005 with her bestseller La Rose écarlate (The Scarlet Rose, Delcourt), which had sold over 1.2 million copies by 2015, with a total of twenty-one volumes published through 2024. Inspired by the romantic adventures and costumes of Lady Oscar, she skillfully blends the structure of Franco-Belgian comics with a manga aesthetic. This duality is openly reflected in her influences: Rumiko Takahashi (Ranma ½), Hiromu Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist), Riyoko Ikeda (Lady Oscar), and Yslaire (Sambre). Building on this success, Patricia Lyfoung developed several parallel projects: Un prince à croquer (A Prince to Devour) starting in 2012 and the spin-off La Rose écarlate– Missions (The Scarlet Rose – Missions) beginning in 2013 (illustrated by Jenny), followed in 2018 by Les Mythics, a wildly successful youth series co-written with her husband Philippe Ogaki and Patrick Sobral, comprising around twenty volumes. She passed away in January 2025, at the age of forty-seven, leaving behind a landmark body of work in French children’s comic art.