-Smurf’s up! In the smurfing world of Smurfs, Papercutz has the smurfing Smurf rights and will smurf out some graphic novels for the smurf market.

Written by Yvan Delporte and illustrated by Peyo, the Smurfs began life in the Belgian comic magazine Spirou back in 1958 and eventually spawned an award-winning and long-running Hanna-Barbera animated series back in 1981, and a series of Random House graphic albums around the same time.

And now in seeming anticipation of the

A complete 20-page story called The Smurfnapper, it shows the first encounter of Gargamel the evil sorcerer with the Smurfs as he discovers he needs to melt one down as part of his alchemy formula. It’s a fun, slapstick adventure with enough comings-and-goings of Smurfs to almost be door-slamming play.

Production values on the comic – English translation, lettering, coloring, paper stock – are all top notch. If that’s an indication of the work on the graphic novels (and I’ll bet it is), we’re all in for a Smurfing good time.

Okay, I’ll stop now.

[Artwork: Cover to The Smurfs, © Peyo]