Olivier Pâques is a Belgian comics artist, best-known for drawing the historical comic 'Loïs' for Jacques Martin since 2003. Pâques was born in Uccle in 1977, and attended the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels. His neighbor, comics artist Pascal Zanon, introduced him to Jacques Martin, who took him under his wings. His first assigment was assisting Christophe Simon on the backgrounds of his two albums in the series 'Lefranc' in 2001 and 2002. After this apprenticeship, Martin asked him to illustrate 'Loïs', a series about a young painter at the court of Louis XIV in Versailles. Pâques quickly settled in a classical drawing style, with a specialization in the detailed depiction of boats. His drawings clearly echo the work of his tutor, but also of comics artists like Marc-Renier, Félicísimo Coria and Jacques Denoël.
The first album of 'Loïs', 'Le Roi-Soleil' (Casterman, 2003), already earned him the Prix d'Avenir for most promising artist at the 2004 Saint-Gilles comics festival. He made another album in cooperation with Martin, after which Patrick Weber gradually took over the writing duties. Pierre Valmour in turn succeeded Weber from the 6th album in 2013. Pâques also provided the illustrations for the first installment of the educational spin-off series 'Les Voyages de Loïs' (2006), which dealt with the history of Versailles during the reign of Louis XIII.
