Pierre Culliford (French: [kylifɔʁd]; 25 June 1928 – 24 December 1992) was a Belgian comics writer and artist who worked under the pseudonym Peyo([pejo]). His best-known works are the comic book series The Smurfs and Johan and Peewit, in which the Smurfs first appeared.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Peyo, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.