René Hausman

The self-taught artists René Hausman is famed for his animal and nature comics. He distinguished himself with his notable watercolor technique and the successful typecasting of animals. He dropped out of school at age 18 to spend all his time on drawing. Among his first jobs were illustrating advertisements in the local newspaper and creating images for school films. During his military service, he began working for the weekly Le Moustique. In 1957, he joined Spirou magazine, where he created the nature series 'Saki et Zunie' with scripts by Yvan Delporte. In the following years, Hausman estrablished himself as a talented illustrator of animal kingdoms, which became his trademark for many years. He even got his own collection at the publishing house Dupuis, called 'Terre Entière'.

After years doing mainly illustration work, Hausman returned to comics in 1976. From that year, he drew erotic fables for Fluide Glacial scripted by Binet, Delporte, Dubois or Gotlib. He took on the character of 'Zunie' again the Spirou supplement Le Trombone Illustré. He then came up with the fairytale heroine 'Laiyna', with scripts by Pierre Dubois. The two mid-1980s 'Laiyna' stories, 'La Forteresse de Pierre' and 'Le Crépuscule des Elfes', where later published in Dupuis' prestigious Aire Libre collection. For the same collection, Hausman teamed up with writer Yann to create 'Trois Cheveux Blancs' and 'Le Prince des Écureuils'. In 2003, Hausman wrote and drew the prehistoric 'Les Chasseurs de l'Aube'.