honeymonster | strange, but true

The Smurfs were not invented in the eighties by evil marketing demons, as I had been thinking all my life. In fact, the comic encyclopedia I got out of the library says they've had their own comic strip since the nineteen-sixties!

SCHTROUMPFS, LES (Belgium) Peyo's Les Schtroumpfs evolved as a spin-off from his earlier comic strip creation Johan et Pirlouit. In 1957 Johan and his companion Pirlouit came upon the fabulous country of the Schtroumpf little people who were so friendly and endearing that they soon received a strip of their own in the pages of the weekly magazine Spirou (1960).

The Schtroumpfs are a race of gentle, civilized and utterly charming elves whose ingenuity triumphs over all the mishaps that often befall their sleepy little village. Identical in appearance and costume, but each with his own personality, the Schtroumpfs form a microcosm of society under the wise and enlightened guidance of the "Grand Schtroumpf". The strip is drenched in a poetic atmosphere directly derived from European folklore, and its landscapes are often reminiscent of Little Nemo's fairy-tale settings. Peyo's style, subdued and simple as are his stories, is never too cute and mannered, despite the temptations of the genre.

Peyo (Pierre Culliford) has been throwing his little people into the most diversified adventures, inventing for them menaces and enemies of all kinds, whether external like the brigands who try from time to time to steal their treasure, or internal like the would-be dictator who once sprang from their midst and declared himself "schtroumpfissimo". All of these mishaps have a happy ending, and and the Schtroumpfs go back to their happy-go-lucky life of singing and dancing.

Les Schtroumpfs' happy mixture of fantasy and adventure, delightful drawing and clever narrative have made the strip into a favorite of European readers (in recent years Peyo has left more and more of the writing to Yvan Delporte who has managed to maintain the strip's unique poetry and appeal). Les Schtroumpfs has gone through numerous reprints in both hardcover in paperback form; they have been made into toys and used for advertising [No kidding--Honey]. In the 1960s there was a series of nine Schtroumpfs cartoons produced by Eddie Rissack and Maurice Rosy with more than a passing assist by Peyo.

--The World Encyclopedia of Comics, 1976