Born in Rennes on 8 June 1950, Albert Blesteau worked as a scene painter from 1966 to 1976. He was one of many young Bretons on whom Jean-Claude Fournier lavished his advice. So it was no surprise to see the father of “Bizu” caricatured in a friendly way in his first “Carte Blanche” for Spirou in 1973.
Blesteau grew up in Brussels where he devised his own series of strips, “Wofi” in 1976 and worked at Peyo studios. After a few pieces of secondary work on the Smurfs, he concentrated on reviving “Benoît Brisefer”. Initially, he produced a preliminary complete story as a test piece followed by the seventh long episode in this saga about the little boy who is extremely strong when he hasn’t got a cold (“Le Fétiche” in 1978).
Remaining nostalgic about Brittany, he returned there in 1982. The world of “Wofi”, the clever white dog, meanwhile, had evolved and Blesteau wrote several long humorous adventure stories based on it which were published in albums by Dupuis.
Having essentially become a scriptwriter, the artist Christian Godard suggested that Blesteau develop a child character which he had devised twenty years previously in a one-off complete story for a special edition (“La Naissance de Toupet”). Blesteau was seduced by the project and developed a form of graphic design which was all based on curves and warm images in order to bring to life the family which surrounded the little terror.
Hence, a new pair of authors was formed, slightly inadvertently. Since 1989 onwards, “Toupet” has been one of the most popular Belgian family cartoons.
