stories, which are now published in 't Kapoentje, the weekly juvenile supplement to Het Volk. The last of the seven appeared in 1964. Nys also started in 1963 the fairytale comic Langteen en Schommelbuik (Longtoe and Wobblebelly), which ended after 11 stories because the work on Jommeke became too time consuming. The stories, a spin-off of some figures from the 14th story of Jommeke, were a result of his fascination with the work of Disney. They reappeared in the 168th Jommeke story. Apart from the continuous stories in the newspaper, a few hundred weekly Jommeke gags appeared on the back cover of the Flemish comic magazine Ohee. When in 1965 Marc Sleen left Het Volk, Jef Nys took over his series De Lustige Kapoentjes for two years. After this, he worked solely on Jommeke. The series became one of the most popular in Flanders, with loads of merchandising and surrounding publications. A 1967 low budget movie did not become a huge success, with some 30,000 viewers. But the comics sold more each year, raising from 350,000 copies in 1965 to 1 million in 1970. Every year since, at least 1 million copies have been sold, and in 1976 and 1979 more than 2 million Jommeke books were sold. Every new book has an initial printing of some 100,000 copies. The first album, De jacht op een voetbal, is the most often reprinted, with 23 reprints and a total of 448,000 copies sold in 2005. From 1971 on, Jef Nys could no longer handle all the work alone and started using contributors, at first as inkers, later also for the writing and drawing of the stories. Nevertheless, he would personally follow up all the work, often taking home drawings to correct them, until very close to his death in 2009. This tight control over Jommeke will reach beyond his demise, since he specified in his testament that the series should be continued, alongside a list of specifications that would guard the overall spirit of the Jommeke universe (no violence, no sexual content, no changes to the overall appearance of the protagonists...). From 1989 until 2005, the weekly youth supplement of Het Volk was called the Jommekeskrant. Nys worked for many years solely for Catholic newspapers and magazines, and produced many biographies of religious figures. However, in 1970, he and his wife divorced and broke up with the Catholic Church. As of