Hansrudi Wäscher

Hansrudi Wäscher (born 5 April 1928 in St. Gallen, Switzerland; died 7 January 2016 in Freiburg im Breisgau) was a German comics artist and comics author.

Wäscher was the son of a German father and a Swiss mother, who through marriage also attained German citizenship. Wäscher spent the early years of his life in German-speaking parts of Switzerland. Then he moved to Lugano, where he first came into contact with Comics. After moving to Hannover in 1940 and completing the German high-school diploma of Mittlere Reife he began training as a poster artist, and then studied advertising art for seven semesters at the Werkkunstschule Hannover.During this time he completed a transportation manual for the city of Hannover called "Der Herr Boll."

During the 1950s Wäscher worked for the Walter Lehning Verlag publishing house and created some of his best-known comics there: Sigurd, Nick, Tibor, Falk and countless others that appeared in the Piccolo-format (thin booklets in landscape format) and with circulation numbers sometimes reaching the millions. He also continued the Akim series into its 40th issue after the Italian artist Augusto Pedrazza had produced the first 28 issues. The Sigurd series was published until 1960 with a total of 324 books and after 1958 received a reprint in 124 booklets in large format. Later "Sigurd" also appeared as a radio drama in Germany. The earliest issues of "Sigurd" have been auctioned for as much as 3,000 Euro. Other Wäscher comics also reach high prices in auction. In 2011 the "Sigurd" Piccolo booklets were released as an iPhone-App in Germany.

In 1955 "Titanus-Verlag" publishing house released two Wäscher booklets in its Science-Fiction series "Titanus." During the same time Lehning Verlag publishing house also published the "Gert" series which ended after 24 issues. From 1956 to 1959 Wäscher continued to work on the Akim series with "Akim – Neue Abenteuer" (Akim – New Adventures), bringing the total issue-count to 197 although issue 197, which ended the series, was released by the Norbert Hethke-Verlag publishing house only 25 years nach after issue 196 was completed. After the Akim, which had clear references to Tarzan, Wäscher continued drawing through the 1960s with the jungle adventure "Tibor" which reached 187 Piccolo issues, and was later rereleased in large format. At the same time Wäscher was working on a new knight epic "Falk", which reached 164 issues until 1963.

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