René Sterne

Trained as a teacher rather than an artist, René Sterne entered the world of comic art relatively late in life, but with a rigor and simplicity that would make him one of the most respected exponents of the ligne claire (clear line) style, eventually becoming one of the few creators deemed worthy of carrying on the legacy of Edgar P. Jacobs. 

Born René Vanpyperzeele on August 25, 1952, in Jemappes, Belgium, he was passionate about history and philosophy. He earned a teaching certification in French, history, and ethics at the École normale de Mons and initially became a teacher. It was his meeting with the artist Chantal De Spiegeleer—who would become his wife and colorist—that steered him away from that path: she accompanied him on a trip around the world and taught him how to translate a script into images. It took him two years of hard work before he produced his first satisfying story.

In 1985, he serialized L’Avion du Nanga in Tintin magazine—the first adventure of Adler, a Luftwaffe pilot who defected and took refuge in the Pacific. Published under the pseudonym Sterne—a reference to the seabird—the series was taken over by Le Lombard in 1987 and would go on to include ten albums, brought to life by René Sterne’s clean lines and Chantal De Spiegeleer’s colors. In 1992, the couple settled permanently in the Grenadines archipelago in the Caribbean. 

Noted for the precision of his classic style, he was chosen by writer Jean Van Hamme to illustrate a new Blake and Mortimer album, La Malédiction des trente deniers —a project dedicated to staying true to Edgar P. Jacobs’s style, which he undertook with extreme meticulousness. Death took him by surprise while he was still working on the project on November 15, 2006; Chantal De Spiegeleer completed the album. The artist left behind a body of work renowned for its rigorous classicism, which influenced creators like Cosey.