Jan Fischer was an illustrator from Prague, who is best known as the original artist of the classic Czech comic series 'Rychle sipy' ('Fast Arrows'). He enrolled in Karlove University in 1924, where he studied Law for two years, before heading to Paris. He got his degree in 1930, but he eventually embarked on a career as an illustrator.
Together with writer Jaroslav Foglar he created 'Rychle sipy' in 1938, a comic about a group of five boys that would become Czechoslovakia's first significant comic strip. Originally, the comic was published in the boys' magazine Mlady hlasatel (Young Announcer). The magazine was cancelled by the German oppressor in 1941. After World War II, the comic returned in a similar magazine, Vpred! (Ahead!).
However, the communist government banned the speech balloons from the comic (considered "too western") before eventually banning the series altogether. 'Rychle sipy' didn't return until the late 1960's, at first in reprints and then in new stories drawn by Marko Cermak, since Jan Fischer had passed away in his birth town Prague in January 1960.
