'Les Vétos'.
Alain Peral is a Belgian cartoonist and illustrator. After working in the Luxembourg animation industry and assisting the Belgian comic artists Daniël Kox and Olivier Saive, he took over the artwork of the popular children's comic 'Billy the Cat' (2001-2007) in Spirou magazine. Since 2009, he has provided artwork to several humor comic series for Éditions Bamboo, including 'Les Vétos' (2009-2011), 'Les Fondus du Vin' (2013) and 'Le Petit Louis XIV' (2015). Since 2016, he works alongside Jeroen De Coninck at Studio Peyo as one of the artists of Peyo's 'Smurfs' characters.
Early life and career
Alain Perwez was born in 1967 in Ath, in the Belgian province Hainaut (Henegouwen). Desiring to become a cartoonist since the age of ten, he studied Illustration at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Liège and then took a three-year art course form the École Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc in the same city. His first step into the Belgian comic industry was assisting Olivier Saive by coloring the second installment of the comic book series based on the children's puppet series 'Tatayet' (Marsu Productions, 1990).
Animation career
Between 1993 and 1996, Alain Perwez lived in Luxembourg, where he worked as lay-out artist for 352 Productions on the TV show 'Crobs', broadcast on France 3. Additionally, he animated some inbetween sequences for the animated TV series based on the comic book series 'Billy the Cat' by Stéphan Colman and Stephen Desberg. He also contributed to the animated feature film 'Werner - Das muss kesseln!!!' (1996), based on the 'Werner' comic series by the German cartoonist Brösel.
'Billy the Cat' album 8.
Assistant work
When he returned to the Belgian Liège region, Perwez got back in touch with Olivier Saive, who helped him secure an assistant job with the comic artist Daniël Kox. In 1996 and 1997, Perwez aided Kox with the inking and some of the background art for his long-running humor comic about the chubby police officer 'L'Agent 212', written by Raoul Cauvin and published in Spirou magazine. He also resumed his collaboration with Olivier Saive by coloring 'Kali'stoire' (1997), a one-shot advertising comic book written by Éric Adam and Xavier Fauche for the Potash Mines of Alsace. By this time, he was signing his comic book work with "Peral".
Billy the Cat
Again through Olivier Saive, Peral was introduced to Stéphan Colman, co-creator of the 'Billy the Cat' comic with scriptwriter Stephen Desberg. Originally created for Spirou magazine in 1982, the series deals with a young boy who died in an accident and reincarnated in the body of a kitten. By the late 1990s, the series had a considerable prominence thanks to a popular animated TV series, to which, coincidentally, Peral had already contributed as an inbetweener. In 2001, Peral was hired to work on short comic stories with the character, while Colman would continue to do the longer serials. However, Colman left the series altogether and by 2004, Peral drew his first 'Billy the Cat' serial, 'Monsieur Papa'. On page 15 of this episode, the original scriptwriter Desberg also left. He was succeeded by Jean-Louis Janssens, who worked with Peral on two more serials, 'Les Machines à Ronronner' (2006) and 'Le Chaméléon' (2007). All in all, Peral drew four albums of 'Billy the Cat' for publisher Dupuis, concluding the series in 2007 with the eleventh volume.
'Les Fondus du Vin de Bordeaux' (2013).
Éditions Bamboo
After leaving Dupuis, Peral began an association with Éditions Bamboo, a French publishing house known for its many thematical gag comics based on professions, interests or time periods. With François Gilson as scriptwriter, he made three books of 'Les Vétos' (2009-2011), starring the veterinarians Nath and Dan. In 2013, Peral illustrated 'Les Fondus du Vin de Bordeaux', the first volume of the gag series about wine connoisseurs, 'Les Fondus du Vin', scripted by Bamboo's star writers Hervé Richez and Christophe Cazenove. The further volumes of the series were drawn by Serge Carrère, Grégoire Berquin and, most notably, Olivier Saive. Again working with scriptwriter Cazenove, Peral moved on to draw the single-volume 'Le Petit Louis XIV' (2015), a gag comic depicting the French Sun King as a little brat who can do whatever he want, much to the dismay of the rest of the royal court. In the following year, Peral drew 'La Guerre de 100 Ans – 1337-1453' (2016), a humorous one-shot comic book about the Hundred Years' War, once again written by Richez and Cazenove.
Studio Peyo
Since July 2016, Alain Peral is employed by IMPS, also known as Studio Peyo, based in the Walloon Brabant town of Genval. There, he joined the team of writers, artists and colorists working on new stories and additional material with Peyo's famous blue dwarfs, 'The Smurfs'.
'Le Petit Louis XIV' (2015).
Illustrator for books and advertisements
Besides working on comic projects, Peral has also made illustrations for book publishers and commercial clients. For his children's book illustrations, he mostly uses water color paintings. For Éditions Hemma, he illustrated ten books for children who are learning to read, starring the little mouse 'Sourimousse' (2001-2003). Originally written by François Gilson and then by Schmurl, the books follow the interactive concept of "one word, one image", meaning that certain words in the text are replaced by a drawing, allowing the readers to discover the missing words themselves.
As an advertising illustrator and designer, Peral designed a dinosaur mascot for the building material company Enterprises Lafarge and a mascot for the Hautes Écoles de Commerce business school in Paris. His art has promoted the kitchen brand Kichechef and the Public Works (Travaux Publics) of France. In 2006, he illustrated a boy scout calendar and an ex libris to promote awareness of child cancer. In 2012, Peral made an advertising comic for the DIY store chain Brico-Depot. When in 2012 the annual Tour de France took off in his home town Liège, he designed a poster to promote the event.
Graphic contributions
In 2009, Peral designed the poster for the ‘Le Marche de la BD’ comic event in the Halles Saint-Géry/Sint-Gorikshallen in Bruxelles, followed in 2013 by the poster design for the 20th anniversary edition of the Festival in Contern. In 2010, he was one of several artists who contributed to the collective comic book 'Folklore Wallon en Bulles' (Éditions Dricot, 2010), supervised by Christian Mathoul and Franco Guglielmo. The anthology features several comic stories based on folklore from the Walloon region. Peral's art was also present in collective tribute comic books to François Walthéry's 'Natacha' ('De Toutes Manières', BarDaf Collection, 2016) and Albert Uderzo's 'Astérix' ('Générations Astérix', Les Éditions Albert René, 2019).
Exhibitions
Between 18 July and 23 August 2009, Peral participated with the 'Regard Sur La Jeune Bande Dessinée' exhibition in the Centre Culturel de Bièvre in Belgique. He was one of several artists to take part with this expo, along with Stédo, Didot, Etienne Willem, Pierre-Emmanuel Paulis and Billy De Barquin.
Alain Peral working at Studio Peyo in 2020 (Instagram post by the artist).