At the Corporatie, Vandersteen met a colleague whose wife worked at "Bravo", a weekly Flemish comics magazine that appeared since 1936 and had a French-language version since 1940. Due to the war conditions, they were desperately in need of local artists to replace the American comics they used to publish. Led by established Walloon illustrator Jean Dratz, a young team was gathered, with artists like Edgar P. Jacobs and Jacques Laudy. Vandersteen joined in 1943, and here his comics career really took off. First he created "Tori", a reprise of the prehistoric "Tor", and a few weeks later his new comic "Simbat de Zeerover" ("Simbat the Sailor") was published on the cover and in colour, a first for Vandersteen.