Willy Vandersteen

Willy Vandersteen (15 February 1913 – 28 August 1990) was a Belgian maker of comic books. In his life, he made a large studio and published more than 1,000 comic albums in over 25 series. He sold more than 200 million copies worldwide.
He is considered together with Marc Sleen the founding father of Flemish comics. He is mainly popular in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Hergé called him "The Brueghel of the comic strip". The creation of his own studio and the mass production and commercialization of his work turned him into "the Walt Disney of the Low Countries".
Vandersteen is best known for "Suske en Wiske" (published in English as "Spike and Suzy", "Luke and Lucy", "Willy and Wanda" or "Bob and Bobette"). In 2008 it sold 3.5 million books. His other major series are "De Rode Ridder" with over 200 albums and "Bessy" with almost 1,000 albums published in Germany.
Awards and recognition.
According to UNESCO's Index Translationum, Vandersteen is the second most often translated Dutch language author, after Anne Frank.