In 1951, Vandersteen encountered Karel Verschuere, a young unemployed artist. Vandersteen hired him, and Verschuere soon became his main artist for the realistic series. His first series was "Judi", a retelling of the Old Testament in four albums, which first appeared in "Ons Volkske". The series was not very successful, and Verschuere later finished a fifth part on his own. Verschuere also contributed to the second part of "Tijl Uilenspiegel", just like Bob de Moor and Tibet did, but his main contribution to the output of Vandersteen was his work on "Bessy", a Western series inspired by the success of "Lassie", which started in 1952 in the Walloon newspaper "La Libre Belgique". The series appeared under the pseudonym WiRel, a combination of Willy and Karel, indicating the importance of Verschueren's work. He continued working with Vandersteen until 1967, helping with many of the realistic series Vandersteen created in these years, including "Karl May", "Biggles" and especially "De Rode Ridder".