The paper, Dernière Heure (Last hour), contains eight full pages about the Smurfs. The first page is a Smurf drawing with 'The Smurfs' written in all languages across it. The other seven pages are full of articles and interviews. No advertisements at all! So this is a bit much to translate all in one go, and I might get into copyright troubles as well
I'll take some bits and pieces, if there are requests, just let me know.
Page 2 is about 'The Success story Peyo', and is a short biography of Peyo, with two nice photos of him. Here you can also finc the reason that it is this paper that spends eight pages on him: his first comic appeared in 1947 in the same gazette!
About the Smurfs:
'It is Peyo's wife who is responsible for their blue colour. As a colourist (the person who adds the colour to the comics), she thought that the blue would be better in a green surrounding...'
The third page is an interview with the son of Peyo, Thierry Culliford.
About the early years, when he had quitted the arts school:
All his life has happened due to coincidences. After quitting arts school, he still has the passion [for arts], but he isn't completely convinced. He sees two job ads in the paper, one for dental technician, and one for 'gouacheur' (gouache drawer?). He has presented himself at the first, but it was already taken, so he has taken his chances at the second, and it's there that everything has started. He could just as well have made a career with the dentists...
It's at the 'gouache' job in an animation studio that he meets people like Franquin (from Gaston, Marsupilami, and other comics) and Morris (from Lucky Luke).
About the international success:
At the end of the decennium [the seventies], a little girl was with her grandfather in a shop, and she wanted a Smurf plush puppet. Grandfather gives it to her, and when they arrive at home, little brother immediately plays with the puppet as well. Grandfather was a big boss at NBC [one of the three great American TV channels], and he has said to himself that they should do something with those creatures that amused the children so much...
And finally:
For the moment, we are discussing the making a new full length movie in the United States with modern animation.
If the son himself, the current artistic leader of the Smurfs imperium (the daughter is the administrative boss), says so, then it is true! But they are discussing, nothing is certain yet. I have no idea what he means by 'modern animation', perhaps more 3D, like Incredibles or so? Or 2D, but computer made?
Page 4 and 5 are an alphabet of the major personnages of Peyo (Smurfs and other series), and some other important things in his career. I'll skip that for now.
To be continued...
Attom 
Bored of normality, why not go smurf? 
