Jan Romare

Jan Romare was a Swedish diplomat and cartoonist.

Biography

Romare sold his first cartoon, Igelkotten Hubert to the magazine Folket i Bild in 1953, when he was seventeen years old. He created a few other cartoons for Folket i Bild and the teenage magazine Fickjournalen during the 1950s.
Having finished his bachelor's degree, he began working for the Ministry for [Foreign Affairs (Sweden)|Ministry for Foreign Affairs] and received his first foreign posting at the Swedish embassy in Paris in 1963. During his time as a diplomat he had several postings and served as the head of the Swedish delegation to the UNCHR.
In 1987, Romare's comic strip Pyton, about a man and his python snake, premiered in the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter. This was Romare's breakthrough as a cartoonist. It was followed by the comic strip Himlens änglar, a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of life after death. In 1991, Romare took a leave of absence from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to focus on his drawing and when he retired in 1998 he began working as a cartoonist on a full-time basis.
Romare received the Adamson Award for Best Swedish Comic-Strip Cartoonist in 1996. His cartoons have been collected in a number of albums.