Reporter's Inside Stories: An Interview With Scribbler

Reporter: For my next installment of Reporter's Inside Stories, I will be smurfing to another of the famed artists of the Smurf Village...only this one is more famous to the Smurfs than to anyone else. He is the village cartoonist who likes to entertain his fellow Smurfs with what he calls bandes dessinées in the daily newspaper, and though he is constantly known as Peyo Smurf, his real name is Scribbler. Today we're going to visit him in his studio smurfing the work that he enjoys the most.

(Reporter enters the studio to see Scribbler hard at work drawing a cartoon strip.)

Scribbler: Ah, bonjour, M'sieu Reporter. You're not here to smurf me about deadlines now, are you?

Reporter: No, I'm just here for an interview, Scribbler. It must be hard work for you to keep smurfing up a fresh new comic strip for us to read every day. How do you manage to keep smurfing it?

Scribbler: I just like to smurf at life and see what's smurfing on it for my inspiration. You see, everyday life is just so full of situations and opportunities for things to happen that are unexpected, and sometimes the unexpected things can be so funny to smurf at that we need to take a smurf at ourselves when these things happen and wonder why we get so upset. My fellow Smurfs themselves are a constant source of inspiration: there's Brainy with his endless smurfing of his wisdom, Jokey with his exploding surprises, Vanity with his narcissism, Clumsy with his ineptitude, Lazy with his constant sleeping, Grouchy with his pessimism, and so on and so forth.

Reporter: And from all that, you come up with the gags that you smurf everyday in your comic strips. Don't you think your fellow Smurfs might be offended that you portray them the way you do?

Scribbler: Oh, ne sois pas bête. Most Smurfs in this village have a sense of humor, or they wouldn't find my work to be funny. I never smurf my work to be offensive to anyone because I know my boundaries when it smurfs to humor. But sometimes you can't help it when some Smurf doesn't like what I smurf into my strips no matter how hard I try to please him.

Reporter: I know that feeling when it smurfs to my writing, Scribbler. Is writing and smurfing funny gags all that you smurf in your studio?

Scribbler: I do try to imagine a more serious kind of book that I would want to smurf with my drawing style. One of my ideas features Empath and a group of Smurf superheroes that smurf together for the cause of protecting the village, the forest, and all who smurf in it from danger, that I would like to call Justice Smurfs. And then there's one where Jokey returns as the Masked Pie Smurfer. I even have the design for the cover smurfing on my wall here.

Reporter: (takes a look at the cover for Scribbler's Masked Pie Smurfer comic book) Whoa, that makes Jokey seem rather dark with his pie ready to smurf at someone. You sure you'd want to smurf up a comic book story like this?

Scribbler: I don't like smurfing grim and gritty in my bandes dessinées because I just don't feel it's appropriate for Smurfs to be seen smurfing that kind of violence and other unsmurfory things that even young Smurflings shouldn't read about. I prefer smurfing stories with a humorous twist to them so that others can smurf a laugh out of what they're reading.

Reporter: When do you think you'll ever start smurfing these kinds of comic books? Because I for one would like to read about Empath and the Justice Smurfs.

Scribbler: Ah, qui sait, M'sieu Reporter? Smurfing together these strips is already enough work for me to smurf in a day.

To be continued...