René Hausman

René Hausman learned drawing by copying his favorite albums and taking one hour of lessons a week while he was in secondary school. In 1958, at the age of 22, René Hausman met Raymond Macherot who helped him to join Spirou. If he animates a series of comic strips, Saki and Zunie, in this magazine and publishes complete stories from time to time, he is especially famous for the Bestiary, its pages on animals. From 1959 to 1973, under the titles Bestiary, Nature or untitled, hundreds of animals were studied in this way. In the Journal de Spirou, René Hausman also illustrates outside his section: news, educational sheets, supplements, tales. René Hausman is the fabulous of the little people. Then, a new series of illustrations, but also the Laïyna comic strip. In the 1980s, René Hausman became a designer of comic strips set in magical universes (several albums published in the “Aire Libre” collection), and specialized in the illustration of the same genre. At the beginning of the 1970s, René Hausman only published a little in the Journal de Spirou. His animal plates are nevertheless collected in large illustrated albums published by Dupuis. In the 1970s, René Hausman was also part of a musical group, Les Pêleteûs, using traditional instruments, including the rommelpot, and singing in Walloon.

In 1975, he was awarded the Golden Apple of Bratislava at the Biennial of Illustration in Bratislava, for Unusual Bestiary. In 1977, René Hausman took part in the Illustrated Trombone. From 1984 to 1986, René Hausman produced the Grand 1960s and 1970s. In 1983, René Hausman signed the Manifesto for Walloon culture. In 1998, he obtained, for all of his work, the “Grand Boum-Caisse d'Epargne” Prize, awarded by the bd BOUM Festival in Blois. At the end of 2008, René Hausman and his wife Nathalie Troquette created their small publishing house Luzabelle. Initially, Éditions Luzabelle republished animal plates that had previously been published by Dupuis (Le Grand Bestiaire 2 volumes - 1984). A reissue of the Grand Fabulaire du petit peuple by Pierre Dubois and René Hausman is planned. In 2016, René Hausman took on the character of Chlorophylle (created by Raymond Macherot, whom he knew well), from a screenplay by Jean-Luc Cornette. On September 22, 2012, the Autonomous Basic School of the French Community of Heusy changed its name: from now on, the school is called the René Hausman Basic School. On April 28, 2016, he died at his home in Verviers.