Les Truffineux - 'Millibar et le Traque-Tornade' (Spirou #2253, 18 June 1981).
André Verheye is a Belgian commercial artist, illustrator and painter who, during the 1970s and 1980s, created comics for magazines like Pilote, Spirou and Schtroumpf. Under the name Dédé, he provided Spirou magazine with the funny animal comics 'Alcofribas, le Loup Foque' (1975-1977), 'O'Trush' (1977) and 'Les Truffineux' (1979-1982). As a commercial artist, he has worked for clients like the Disney Company, Delhaize, Diamant Boart, Dimas, Spa and Kellogg's, as well as publications in the medical and educational fields.
Early life and career
André Verheye was born in 1950 in the Belgian capital of Brussels. Between 1966 and 1971, he studied at the city's Royal Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in monumental art, illustration and advertising. By 1972, he was contributing his first gag pages and short comic stories to Pilote magazine and Le Soir Jeunesse, the youth supplement of the daily newspaper Le Soir. In September 1973, he appeared in Spirou magazine's 'Carte Blanche' pages, a section for new talent to showcase their work.
'Alcofribas' (Spirou #1955, 2 October 1975).
Spirou magazine
Between 1974 and 1983, Verheye remained a regular presence in Spirou magazine and its Dutch edition Robbedoes, both as comic creator and as illustrator for editorial sections, notably 'Apache Qui Rit' and 'Le Correspondant'. Together with fellow Academy students like Watch, Bom and Bosse, Dédé was part of a new generation of artists that filled Spirou with absurd and hippie-flavored content. Using the pen name Dédé, one of Verheye's early tasks was creating the 'Boîte à Jeux' activity page (1974-1975), using a variety of funny animal characters.
For his comic features, Dédé also stuck to anthropomorphic animals, which were all part of the same universe. His first regular gag feature was 'Alcofribas, le Loup Foque' (1975-1977), about a zany wolf. In Germany, the feature ran as 'Archibald, der Wolf' in YPS magazine. Together with scriptwriter Bom, he then created 'O'Trush' (1977), the ostrich detective, who only starred in a handful of gags. The latter character was also included in Dédé final creation for Spirou magazine, 'Les Truffineux' (1979-1982), about a tavern and its strange funny animal guests. This time creating longer stories, Dédé's regular characters included the innkeeper and his daughter Bouton d'Or, Jacky the hare, the good-hearted bear Jo Pudding and the famous cow singer Betty Lavache.
In 1982 and 1983, Dédé was a regular illustrator for Spirou's news supplement 'Le Correspondant', but after that, his name disappeared from the magazine's pages.
Cover illustrations for Zazou' and Spirou issue #2248 (14 May 1981).
Further work in comics
In 1978, the team of Dédé, Watch, Bom and Bosse launched the ephemeral monthly Zazou, which lasted only three issues. For this title, Dédé illustrated the cover and created the character of Chippie. During this same period, Dédé assisted Luc Mazel as an inker on his humorous western comic 'Chacal Bill' for Pif Gadget magazine. Together with Mazel, he also produced artwork for the Snorks ('Les Snorky'), characters created by Nic Broca, appearing in comics and an animated series. In the late 1980s, Verheye was drawing Peyo's 'Smurf' characters for Cartoon Creation's Schtroumpf magazine. With Yvan Delporte as writer, he also created the watercolor illustrations for four books in the series 'Les Contes du Grand Schtroumpf' ("Tales from Papa Smurf", 1991). He also briefly assisted Jean Roba on the backgrounds of his 'Boule et Bill' gag series. In addition, he participated in the collective album 'Pétition - À la Recherche d'Oesterheld et de tant d'autres!' (Amnesty International, 1986), dedicated to the comic writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld and other victims of the Argentine military junta.
'Le Schtroumpf qui aimait les fêtes' (Les Contes du Grand Schtroumpf #3, 1991).
Commercial work
During the 1980s, André Verheye gradually shifted focus from comics to commercial art. He spent ten years doing design and illustration work for the Disney divisions in the Benelux, Switzerland and the Middle East, which included doing work for the late 1980s relaunch of the character of Eega-Beeva in the Disney universe, and a line of Disney products for the Delhaize supermarkets. Working for large advertising agencies, André Verheye provided corporate communication artwork for companies like Procter & Gamble, Cemstobel, Diamant Boart, Dimas and Shell. In advertising, he drew Tony, the tiger mascot of Frosties cereals, as well as the Pierrot character for Spa mineral water bottles. As an illustrator, he has worked frequently for medical and educational companies and publishers like Baxter, De Boeck and Van In. During the 2000s, Verheye set up his own Toonbook2 image bank with cartoons and vector images.
Painter
In addition to his commercial work, André Verheye has been actively making pictorial art, having his atelier in Limal and exhibiting his work at the Free University of Brussels, the Ganshoren cultural center, the Ware Biennale and other venues. In later years, he has been painting landscapes, figures and abstract art, while also indulging himself in photography.
Cartoon from André Verheye's Toonbook2 image bank.