JEAN-MARC ROCHETTE was destined to become a mountain guide, but gave up mountaineering in 1976 after a serious rockfall accident. He then began a career as a comics artist, contributing to the newspaper Le Casse-noix and publishing in the magazines Actuel, L’Écho des savanes, (A Suivre), L’Équipe and Okapi. He also drew the series Edmond le cochon, and Transperceneige (Snowpiercer), later adapted for the screen in 2013 by Korean director Bong Joon-ho. After seven years in Berlin from 2009 to 2016, where he devoted himself almost exclusively to painting, Jean-Marc Rochette returns to France. In parallel, Terminus was published in 2015 to bring the Transperceneige universe to a close, before giving it new impetus by embarking with Matz on the prequel series, Extinctions: two volumes have been published to date. From now on, Jean-Marc Rochette is devoting himself to a more personal work, as a sort of rebirth. A year after the successful Ailefroide, the album Le Loup, a bestseller translated into over 10 languages, confirmed Jean-Marc Rochette’s consecration as one of the most important contemporary authors.

La Dernière reine (2022) is probably his most personal album. In it, he celebrates the land that is so dear to him and questions the issues that drive him: the mountains, the balance between man and nature. With La Dernière reine, however, Jean-Marc Rochette takes us by surprise, for this story is first and foremost a beautiful love story. In 2024, it has been translated into English and published by SelfMadeHero: https://selfmadehero.com/books/the-last-queen.

For several years now, Jean-Marc Rochette has been living in the Vénéon valley, in the heart of the Écrins National Park, in France.