Peyo

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Peyo (1990)
Peyo's signature

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

Life

Origin and early years

Peyo's father was of English descent, his mother Belgian. In his youth he read many comic magazines. The desire to become an animator arose in him early on. Peyo attended a three-month course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels and at the age of 17 became a colorist at the CBA trick studio , where he met André Franquin , Morris and Eddy Paape . After the end of the war, however, the studio suffered severe financial losses due to the import of American films, and Peyo therefore became an illustrator in the advertising industry. Soon he also published small humorous comic series in various magazines .

Johann and Pfiffikus

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

His greatest wish was to have his creations in Spirou , one of the largest comic magazines in Belgium, which he finally succeeded in 1952 after great effort and on the advice of Franquin . There he first had to adapt to the style of the house and z. B. convert Johann's blonde hair into black. It was not until 1954 that he found his actual style and also created the figure of the court jester Pfiffikus, Johann's companion, who became extremely popular.

The Smurfs

A turning point was the year 1958, when in the ninth adventure of Johann and Pfiffikus with the title La flûte à six trous (Eng. Later The Smurfs and the Magic Flute ) the Smurfs first appeared, of which the readers soon asked for more. Therefore, in 1959, at the suggestion of Spirou's editor-in-chief Yvan Delporte , Peyo decided to draw his first own Schlumpf story in miniature format. The title was Les Schtroumpfs Noirs ( Eng . Blue Smurfs and Black Smurfs ). The result was such an overwhelming success that he even had to give up his beloved comic series Johann und Pfiffikus . In 1960 he also created the series Benoit Brisefer (German: Benni Bärenstark ) with Willy Maltaite alias Will and in 1961 also conceived the detective series Jacky and Celestin , again initially together with Will as a draftsman .

Because he was no longer able to cope with the associated workload, from the early 1960s Peyo employed a number of young draftsmen as assistants, both one after the other and at the same time (including François Walthéry , Marc Wasterlain , Derib , Gos ), and ultimately founded his own, small drawing studio. The final breakthrough in his comic series The Smurfs was only achieved with the full-length animated feature film The Smurfs and the Magic Flute in 1975/76 and, above all, with the animated series on television from 1981 (in Germany from 1983), after which huge marketing began. Later generations got to know the Smurfs mainly in the TV version.
Peyo wanted to write the Smurfs not just for children, but for all ages - his last fully featured Smurf album, "The Financial Smurf", is "a satire of our social life today." "The album is not just for children, it's a satire on the financial world ".

death

Peyo died after a serious illness at the age of 64 on Christmas Eve 1992. He left behind his wife Nine and his two children (son and daughter), who participated in drawings and marketing during his lifetime.

Peyo's wife, Nine Culliford, died on July 5, 2016 at the age of 86.

Honors

The asteroid (2944) Peyo was named after him in 1993 at the suggestion of Jean Meeus .

literature

  • Victor Aldea: Peyo, el mago azul. In: Cuadernos de literatura infantil y juvenil, Barcelona, ​​14 (2001), 140, pp. 49-59 (esp.)
  • Thomas Bleicher: What is there in the comic forest? - Peyo's work in Germany. In: COMIXENE # 55 (October 1995).
  • Hugues Dayez: Peyo l'enchanteur. Biography. Bruxelles: Niffle 2003. ISBN 2-87393-046-2 (French)
  • Wolfgang J. Fuchs: What is Smurfing there? - Peyo and his Smurfs. In: COMIXENE # 23 (March / April 1979)
  • Volker Hamann: Peyo. In: REDDITION. Journal for Graphic Literature # 21 (May 1993)
  • Joachim Kaps: The characters live on - Peyo's world after Peyo. In: COMIXENE # 55 (October 1995)
  • Joachim Kaps: Studio Peyo today. In COMIXENE # 55 (October 1995)
  • Volker Hamann (ed.): REDDITION. Journal of Graphic Literature # 69 (Nov. 2018): Peyo and the Smurfs

Web links

Commons : Peyo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ s. Osteried, Peter u. Volker Hamann, Out of the Shadow - Peyo and his Assistants, in: Reddition No. 69, 2018; Pp. 32-38
  2. ↑ Hamann, Volker, Mietz, Roland: Interview with Pierre Culliford alias Peyo, In: Reddition Zeitschrift für Graphische Literatur Ausgabe Neunundsechzig, 2018, pp. 22-25
  3. ↑ MPC / Minor Planet Circ. 21954 (English)
personal data
SURNAME Peyo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Culliford, Pierre (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian comic artist
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Brussels , Belgium
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1992
Place of death Brussels , Belgium