Jean-Marc Rochette

A comic artist and author for forty years, as well as a painter and sculptor, Jean-Marc Rochette, born in Baden-Baden in 1956, spent his childhood in Grenoble and grew up in the Vénéon Valley. His dream of pursuing a career as a mountain guide was cut short by a tragic accident. He then devoted himself to his other passion: comic art. Jean-Marc Rochette first published in Actuel, then in L’Écho des savanes. With Martin Veyron, he created the series Edmond le cochon (Edmond the Pig, 1979). He then created Le Transperceneige (Snowpiercer) with Jacques Lob, a major post-apocalyptic science fiction story serialized in (À suivre) and later published in graphic novel form by Casterman, starting in 1984. In the late 1990s, he revisited Le Transperceneige by creating Le Tribut (The Tribute) with Benjamin Legrand, with whom he had already produced Requiem blanc in 1987. In 2003, with Pétillon, he launched the burlesque series Louis et Dico, and in 2005, with Martin Veyron, the historical parody Cour Royale. After spending seven years in Berlin from 2009 to 2016, where he devoted himself almost exclusively to painting, he returned to France to create Ailefroide, altitude 3954, published in 2017 by Casterman. He settled in Les Étages, in the heart of the Écrins, the mountain range where he grew up, and where, as a teenager, he had dreamed of becoming a guide. Since then, he has divided his time between painting, drawing and writing. With Le Loup (The Wolf, 2019) and La Dernière Reine (The Last Queen, 2022)—both published by Casterman and bestsellers translated into a dozen languages—he celebrates the region he holds dear and explores the themes that inspire him: the mountains and the balance between humanity and nature. His latest graphic novel, La Dernière Reine, blending stories of love and art, is currently being adapted for the screen. Meanwhile, in 2015, with Terminus, Jean-Marc Rochette revived Le Transperceneige in collaboration with Olivier Bocquet, then continued the series with Matz by publishing the prequels Extinctions Act 1 and Act 2 (2019–2020). His first art book, Vertiges, was published in November 2019 by Éditions Daniel Maghen. Since then, Jean-Marc Rochette has devoted himself to writing. Au cœur de l’hiver (In the Heart of Winter) is his first novel, published by Éditions Les Étages in 2024. With the same publisher, he has released some art books: Débâcles (2024), a dialogue between his paintings and the photographs of Jérémie Villet, Les Bêtes Blanches (The White Beasts, 2025), based on poems by Robert Alexis, and Les Écrins (2025), featuring new watercolors and texts by Jean-Marc Rochette. As a visual artist, Rochette also creates sculptures. He lives and works between his home in the Écrins Massif and Grenoble.