the Academy closed down due to the threat of V-1 flying bombs. After the war, he started working at 't Pallieterke, a satirical weekly newspaper, where he made political cartoons, illustrations, and his first comics. As a child, Nys had seen Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and it had made a lasting impression on him. In 1947, this inspired him to send a letter to the Walt Disney Company with some samples of his work, hoping to be offered a job there. The Company was not seeking anyone at the time, but the rejection letter was otherwise very encouraging, stating that "Your work was extremely interesting and enjoyed very much by those in the studio who judged it[...]" and "It is the opinion of our art critics that your samples show considerable ability and properly developed and applied, you should go far in an art career" Between 1946 and 1955, he made some short-lived comics (both comic strips and stop comics) for different newspapers, mainly the Gazet van Antwerpen. For Het Handelsblad he produced his first longer series, Amedeus en Seppeke. Meanwhile, he had to fulfill his military duty from 1952 until 1957, working every Saturday with the Air Defense. Jommeke Jommeke started on 30 October 1955 as a one-page gag comic about a boy of about 6 years old, created for a very popular weekly parochial newspaper Kerkelijk Leven (a weekly circulation of over 500,000 copies on a population of less than 6 million), which had some redactorial pages (including the comic) for the whole of Flanders, and local pages for every parish. The last page of Jommeke appeared in Kerkelijk Leven on 2 November 1958. These gags were collected in three books in 1957 and 1958. In the same newspaper he created 5 biographical comics between 1955 and March 1959, which also appeared as albums in those years. When Jommeke started appearing in the daily newspaper Het Volk on 1 November 1958, it changed into a comic story of 44 pages about an 11-year-old, with his friends and family. Every day, he made 2 strips, in the tradition of the Flemish newspaper comics like Spike and Suzy and Nero, but aimed at a younger audience and with fewer political comments. The series was partially based on his older series Amedeus en Seppeke, reusing some characters and story lines. He also continued the production of biographical, more realistic