'Un enfant chez les Schtroumpfs' (2008).
Jeroen De Coninck is a Flemish comic artist, and from 1991 to 2019 one of the draftsmen for products with Peyo's 'The Smurfs'. He started out as an assistant, and eventually moved up as one of the main artists on the regular book series. Earlier in his career, De Coninck worked as a children's book illustrator, and made the one-shot comic 'De Ark van Noë' (1984) and, together with Willem Ritstier, the chivalry comic 'Heer Blooderick' (1984-1985).
Early life and career
Jeroen De Coninck was born in 1956 in Ghent, the son of art painter Jef De Coninck (1921-1999). He studied graphic design at the Higher Institute of Graphic Education in Ghent, and subsequently attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Dendermonde. During a period of thirteen years, he worked as a designer for magazines and advertising brochures, while spending his spare time drawing.
'Heer Blooderick'.
In 1984, his debut album 'De Ark van Noë' was published by Jumbo-Offset in The Netherlands. The comic strongly showed the influence of Albert Uderzo, but De Coninck has also mentioned André Franquin, Will, Régis Loisel and Didier Conrad as inspirations. With Caren Peeters and Willem Ritstier as writers, he made the adventures of 'Heer Blooderick' in the alternative Dutch comic magazine Yèch (1984-1985), also published by Jumbo-Offset. In 1990, another short story by De Coninck was published in Jet, a magazine for young talent published by Le Lombard. In addition, he was an illustrator for children's magazines and books, for instance the youth novel collection 'Bokkesprongen' by publisher De Sikkel, as well as some short stories for the seasonal books by Standaard Uitgeverij.
One of the books illustrated by Jeroen De Coninck for publisher De Sikkel (1991).
The Smurfs
In 1991, Jeroen De Coninck replied to a vacancy at Cartoon Creation, although he wasn't aware at the time that this was Thierry Culliford's publishing imprint for the classic comic series by Peyo. So his introduction to Smurfland was coincidental, yet life changing. De Coninck's first assignments were illustrating game pages, covers and posters for the monthly Schtroumpf! magazine. He subsequently drew some gag pages ('Schtroumpferies') and short stories with Peyo's famous blue dwarves, alongside such colleagues as Daniel Desorgher, Philippe Delzenne, Alain Maury and Pascal Garray. De Coninck proved to be a capable cover illustrator for the regular 'Smurfs' album series, as well as the German magazine Die Schlümpfe by Bastei Verlag (1991-2002). Between 1994 and 2002, he also drew the Smurf characters in the painted background illustrations by Michel Leloup for the text feature 'Le Grand Schtroumpf Raconte' ("Papa Smurf Tells A Story"), which appeared in this German magazine. In addition, De Coninck also wrote scripts for a couple of gags with 'Poussy', another Peyo creation.
Cover illustrations for the German-language version of 'The Smurfs' magazine.
When Cartoon Creation was dissolved, De Conick remained active for Studio Peyo through IMPS, the licensing and graphics company headed by Peyo's daughter Véronique in the town Genval in Walloon Brabant. Although De Coninck had already participated in the production of several 'Smurfs' albums, it wasn't until 2006 that he received a credit byline in the albums. He has since then drawn several longer adventure stories, either alone or in collaboration with studio colleagues Ludo Borecki and Miguel Díaz Vizoso, with Thierry Culliford and Alain Jost providing most of the scripts. Among De Coninck's albums are 'Salade de Schtroumpfs' (#24, 2006), 'Un Enfant Chez les Schtroumpfs' (#25, 2007), 'Les Schtroumpfs de l'Ordre' (#30, 2012), 'Les Schtroumpfs et l'Amour Sorcier' (#32, 2014), 'Schtroumpf le Héros' (#33, 2015), 'Les Schtroumpfs et le Demi-génie' (#34, 2016), 'Les Schtroumpfs et le Dragon du Lac' (#36, 2018) and 'Les Schtroumpfs et la Machine à Rêver' (#37, 2019).
Together with Péral, De Coninck has also provided most of the background drawings for the Smurfs exposition in the Brussels Expo, celebrating the characters' 60th anniversary in 2018. At Studio Peyo/IMPS, he also succeeded José Grandmont as the company archivist. In January 2019, he retired from his day job at IMPS.
'Les Schtroumpfs et le Dragon du Lac' (2018).