François Marcela-Froideval was born in 1958 and started writing around the age of 15. He studied law and literature, and started getting involved in mind games, war games and role-playing in France in the late 1970s with the Jeux Descartes club. He became an advisor, director and collector, and also contributed to the conception of the magazine "Jeux de Stratégie." He worked for the magazine as a journalist and also created a dozen or so card games.
He also founded the Federation of Strategic and Tactical Simulation Games, of which he is the president. On top of that, he founded the magazine "Casus Belli, " where he was editor-in-chief right up until he left for the USA in 1982. In the States, he became assistant to the president of the TSR (publisher of "Dungeons and Dragons"), and co-wrote, with Gary Gygax, several rulebooks for "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, " "Monster Manual II, " and "Oriental Adventures." In 1986, when he returned to France, he managed the distribution and translation of TSR products in France until 1989.
Next, he went to work as an advisor for Infogrames video game publishing, and he also worked with Cyro Interactive, for whom he produced "Dragon Lore, " then "Deo Gratias" and then finally the strategy game "Chroniques de la lune noire." All in all he created about 20 games, and multiple role-play scenarios. Alongside artist Olivier Ledroit, he wrote his first comics script in 1989, "Les Chroniques de la lune noire" ("The Black Moon Chronicles, " Europe Comics 2017), the first album of the new publishing house Zenda.
A number of other series followed, and Froideval soon produced the sequel of "The Black Moon Chronicles" with publisher Dargaud, first with Olivier Ledroit, and then Cyril Pontet. In November 2001 the first book of the series "Les Arcanes de la lune noire" (Dargaud; "The Black Moon Arcana, " Europe Comics 2019) was released, once again in collaboration with Ledroit. In parallel, Froideval continued to come up with new series, all while pursuing existing ones.
A whole new arc of "The Black Moon Chronicles" began in 2012, with Fabrice Angleraud doing the illustrations. Volume 20 was released in 2019 (Europe Comics 2020). Froideval now spends his time working with young artists on future comic books or series.
Olivier Ledroit studied for two years at the Paris 1 Duperré College of Applied Arts. After a few illustrations for card game magazines, he started doing the rounds of mastermind game fairs in search of work.
That's where he met Froideval, who invited him to take part in a comic book project with the publisher Zenda. In 1989, the pair released the first volume of the "Chroniques de la Lune Noire" (Europe Comics 2017, "The Black Moon Chronicles"). Ledroit illustrated the first five volumes of the series (and also did the coloring for the fifth). He also created the covers for the whole series, which was later continued with Dargaud.
By 1990 this fantasy-medieval comic book series had defined a new style: gothic comics.
The artists took their inspiration from the medieval fantasy of the '80s and also from the fantasy-fiction of the 19th century. The series has in turn influenced many authors of this genre from the 1990s onwards. Olivier Ledroit is today recognized as a precursor and leader of the genre.
In 1994, Vents d'Ouest published the first volume of "Xoco, " a series for which Ledroit illustrated the first diptych with a script by Thomas Mosdi.
This series, greatly inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, recreates the gothic and macabre ambiance of "Chroniques de la Lune Noire." During and after "Xoco, " Ledroit worked with Pat Mills on "Sha, " published by Soleil. This new three-part series, published between 1996 and 1998, was a slight change in tone for Olivier Ledroit, but the artist's penchant for disturbing, violent settings remains present.
1998 brought about a short pause in Ledroit's collaboration with Mills, because he was working on his first solo project (script and illustrations): "La Porte écarlate, " published by Soleil.
In 2000, Olivier Ledroit and Pat Mills founded Nickel publishing with Jacques Collin, the founder of Zenda.
Pat Mills wrote the script for Ledroit's second flagship series, "Requiem, Chevalier Vampire."
Alongside the Requiem series, he illustrated the first volume of "Arcanes de la Lune Noire, " the prequel to "Chroniques de la Lune Noire, " recounting the respective stories of each of the various characters from the series. Just like for the original series, the script was written by Froideval, with Yves Lencot as colorist.
In 2005 he published his "Univers féerique d'Olivier Ledroit" (Daniel Maghen), a collection of previously unpublished illustrations of fantastical creatures.
In 2006 he collaborated with video game studio Ubisoft for "Heroes of Might and Magic V." In 2014 he transposed his magical universe into a brand new comic book series: "Wika, " published by Glénat, with Thomas Day on script.
