Peyo

Peyo, pseudonym for Pierre Culliford ( born June 25, 1928 in Brussels, † December 24, 1992 ) was a Belgian comic book artist whose most successful creation, the Smurfs.

Life

Peyo's father was of English origin, the mother Belgian. In his youth, he read many comic magazines. Breakfast was in him the desire to become an animator. Peyo attended a three -month course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels and was 17 years old colorist at the animation studio CBA, where he met Franquin, Morris and Eddy Paape. After the war, however, the studio suffered by the import of U.S. films strong financial losses, and therefore Peyo was an illustrator in the advertising industry. Soon, he published little humorous comic series in various magazines.

Johann, Peewit and the Smurfs

In April 1946, published in the newspaper La dernière heure the first stories of Johann pages on a medieval castle. 1949 published Peyo for the top-selling daily newspaper Le Soir the comic series pussy, the adventures of a black cat, which ran until 1955 ( from 1965 resumption in Spirou ).

His greatest desire was to his creations in Spirou, one of the greatest comic magazines in Belgium, to accommodate what he finally succeeded in 1952 after great efforts and through the intercession of Franquin was. There, he first had to adapt to the style of the house and eg convert the blond hair of Johann in black. In 1954 he found to his actual style and also created the character of the court jester Pfiffikus, the companion of John, who was very popular.

A turning point was the year 1958, when the ninth adventures of Johan and Peewit entitled La flute à six trous ( dt later, The Smurfs and The Magic Flute ) appeared for the first time said Smurfs, of which the reader soon demanded more. Therefore, Peyo 1959 decided, at the suggestion of the chief editor Yvan Delporte Spirou to draw your own first Smurf history in miniature. The title was Les Schtroumpfs Noirs (German Smurfs Blue and Black Smurfs ). This developed into such an overwhelming success that ultimately he even had his beloved comic series Johan and Peewit hanging on the nail. In 1960, he created also with Willy Maltaite nor the series Benoit Brisefer (German Benni Bärenstark ).

In the late 1960s Peyo founded his own Design Studio and presented Young Draughtsman (François Walthéry, Marc Wasterlain, Derib, Gos ) to. The perfect breakthrough of his comic series " The Smurfs " but was only achieved by the film in the 1970s, after which began a huge marketing. Later generations have mainly learned about the animated series on television the Smurfs.

Peyo died after a long illness at the age of 64 years on Christmas Eve 1992.