She was the creator of the work of an entire generation. Patricia Lyfoungauthor of the comic strip The Scarlet Rose (Delcourt), died this Wednesday, January 15 at the age of 47, Delcourt editions announced in a press release. A disappearance as brutal as it is sudden, while the author announced, just a week ago, the dates of her dedications in Parisian bookstores and at the Angoulême festival.
“The disappearance of Patricia Lyfoung leaves a huge void in our house and in the world of comics”indicated the Delcourt group, recalling that the author had published nearly 60 titles there, marking “generations of readers”. As for his longtime editor, Thierry Joor, he wanted to greet “an exceptional artist, endowed with a rare talent for telling stories that transcend ages and cultures. His ability to mix Franco-Belgian influences and manga has helped to evolve the codes of contemporary comics and opened the way to a new generation of authors.”
Of Hmong origin, Patricia Lyfoung was born in 1977 in Villeneuve-la-Garenne. Passionate about drawing very early on, she did her higher education at the Estienne school then at Gobelins in Paris. She first worked as a storyboard assistant at Marathon Animation, a television production company, for children's series. Totally Spies ! et Martin Mystery.
A pioneering author
In 2005, his first volume of The Scarlet Rose published by Delcourt. With 21 volumes, the last of which published in November 2024, the series on the masked vigilante exceeds one million copies sold and obtains an English-speaking version in the United States. It is also the pioneering work, in France, of a hybridization between manga and Franco-Belgian comics, at a time when the Japanese genre has not yet acquired its letters of nobility.
In parallel with this success, Patricia Lyfoung collaborated with the specialized quarterly manga Coyote Mag in which she published Strikethen with the fanzine Light & Darkness. She is also the screenwriter of Like your shadow (Sun), made with the drawings of Mamboo In 2012, the author published the series with Delcourt A prince to eat before offering a spin-off of The Scarlet Rose with the designer Jenny. Alongside Patrick Collected et Philippe Ogaki, creators of Legendaryshe also directed in 2018 the youth series Mythicswhich follows six heroes with extraordinary powers.
