Rune Andréasson

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Rune Herbert Emanuel Andréasson (b. August 11, 1925 in Lindome - d. December 15, 1999 in Viken) was a Swedish comic creator.

Rune Andréasson has created children's comics since 1944, mainly for the Swedish market, but his works have been published in several European nations. As a teenager he made his debut with the comic strip "Brum".

Influenced by Disney's staff, such as Floyd Gottfredson, Andréasson was often called "the Disney of Northern Europe". Actually, Walt Disney once offered him work, but Andréasson refused, instead choosing to stay with his own creations. Those included the comic features "Lille Rikard och Hans Katt", "Rulle och Maja", "Nicke Bock", "Åsnan Kal", "Nalle Ritar och Berättar", "Teddy" and "Pellefant".

His most famous creation, however, is "Bamse", created in the 1960s, a cute and often educational comic featuring "the world's strongest bear". This feature was highly successful, and was followed by several animated cartoons, as well as a comic book. The comic book started in 1973, featured exclusively Swedish material, and is still one of Sweden's most popular comic books today.

In the 1970s, Andréasson began contracting other artists to do the artwork, while he still wrote the stories and kept a strict editorial control of the contents. For example, he refused to publish commercial ads in a book aimed at children. He was also rather restrictive with using his creations for commercial merchandising (sans for a few exceptional cases).

He retired in 1990, and left his comic to the publishing house Egmont.

Rune Andréasson died December 15, 1999 of cancer.