Jean Marcel Adolphe Bruller was born in France, the son of a Hungarian Jewish father and French mother. He studied to be an electrical engineer, but became instead a graphic artist, producing illustrations and cartoons and known for his absurd illustrated novels. His most notable pre-war work was illustrating André Maurois's Patapoufs and Filifers. In 1941, during the German occupation of France, he joined the resistance. He and fellow author Pierre de Lescure co-founded the clandestine publishing house Les Éditions de Minuit. The first book they printed was 'Le Silence de la Mer', which Bruller wrote and published under the pseudonym Vercors. Le Silence de la Mer, which dealt with the moral impossibility of collaboration with the Germans, was dropped into France in large numbers by the British RAF.