Manchu

Manchu is an artist specialized in sci-fi art, whose style is comparable to that of famed illustrators such as Ralph McQuarrie, Chris Foss or even Robert McCall. He was born in Cholet, France in March 1956. He studied art at the Brassart art school in Tours, from 1971 to 1975. In 1977 he worked for animation production company DIC, notably on design work for the animated series Ulysses 31. From 1979 to 1980 he was responsible for the design of the Once Upon a Time… Space animated series for Procidis. 1985 marked the start of a long collaboration with writer/publisher Gérard Klein for the covers of the “Livre de Poche” paperback editions. During the eighties and nineties, he worked with Ciel & Espace magazine, illustrating several scientific articles. In the late 90s, he illustrated Isaac Asimov’s Foundation cycle, in the “Présence du futur” collection.

The Utopia exhibition, which was held in the city of Poitiers in 2000, represented a pivotal time for his career. The early 2000s saw him collaborating with several science fiction publishers. He also began designing works on graphic novel series for French publisher Delcourt, Amenophis IV and Golden Cup.

The year 2000 also marked the beginning of his collaboration with Planète Mars for "Space Art" posters, illustrating human exploration on Mars. After Delcourt released his artbook Science(Fiction) in 2002, Manchu teamed up with Olivier Vatine, with whom he worked on covers for another series of Delcourt’s graphic novels, Histoire Secrète. In 2008, publisher Attakus/Comix Buro released Sketchbook Manchu. For Delcourt’s Series B, Manchu also designed the look of the Spyder series, as well as covers for the Jour J graphic novel series series. In November 2010, Editions Delcourt published its second artbook Starship(s) : l’univers de Manchu. The Daniel Maghen gallery in Paris presented his work in an exhibition simply entitled Manchu, which was instantly a great success when it opened in June 2013.

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You can also find out more about Manchu here : Blog Manchu