Rune Andréasson

Rune Andréasson was born in Lindome in 1925, the family moved to Göteborg when he was less than two years of age. He showed great interest in drawing and acting from early on. After having done some performances both on stage and screen without many memorable results, he decided to be a full-time cartoonist. The first result was Brum --an easy-read, well done comic strip meant for the youngest generation-- which started in Allers in 1944 and went over to Göteborgsposten one year later with great success. Brum continued without break until 1967. But Rune created many other different comics during these twenty-two years, of which especially three is still popular today -- Lille Rikard, Pellefant and Bamse, the last one is the only still in production and arguably the best of them. Bamse was based on an earlier character from Rune's drawing table, Teddy, the strongest bear in the world, very popular in the 1950s. But while it was at its peak, the cartoonist himself got tired of it. There were never any tension moments, he thought, because of Teddy's strength -- he saved himself and his friends out of all situations. Bamse, the replacer, was different. He was only strong when he eat "dunderhonung" ("dunderhonny"), which gave possibility to more action-filled stories. Bamse started in Allers in 1966. The same year, Rune made six animated black and white-shorts of the title figure and his friends, which was sent on Swedish Television with huge success. Seven more shorts -- this time in color -- were made in 1972, and the year after, Bamse got his own comic issue in Scandinavia. Rune wrote and drew all the stories until 1975. He then let others take over the drawing, but continued writing to the early 1990s. He died in 1999, aged 74.