Pierre Culliford (June 25, 1928 – December 24, 1992), known as Peyo, was a comics artist and writer from Belgium.
One of the giants of Franco-Belgian Comics, he is most well known for creating The Smurfs (Les Schtroumpfs). He made other comic book series, but they were all overshadowed in popularity by the little blue men, particularly the very series they originated in, Johan and Peewit.
A 23 minute long documentary about him👁 Image
and his career was aired in 1976 titled "Et Peyo demande : Passe-moi le Schtroumpf" ("And Peyo asks: Pass me the smurf?"), exclusively in Belgium.
A second French language documentary about Peyo called "Du Monde de Peyo à la Planète Schtroumpf"👁 Image
("From Peyo's World to Planet Smurf") was created in late 2017, which deeps even further into his life and comic career. The documentary was later uploaded to the Youtube channel "The World of Peyo" on December 9, 2021.
His works include:
- Johan and Peewit
- The Smurfs
- Benoit Brisefer (also known as Steven Strong and Benny Breakiron)
- Pussycat (Poussy in its original French)
- Pierrot And The Lamp
Tropes & Trivia applying to his works:
- Creator Backlash: He was quite sorry that the Smurfs became so popular he couldn't concentrate as much on his other series.
- Magnum Opus Dissonance: Peyo's favourite work, and actually his original main one, was Johan and Peewit (Johan and Pirlouit in its original French title). But, one day, in one of this series' albums, appeared a certain band of lilliputian blue humanoids... They were intended to be one-shot characters, but quickly became invokedEnsemble Darkhorses. And from then, The Smurfs (Les Schtroumpfs) became the single most remembered work of Peyo (outside French-speaking countries at least).