The Baby Smurf (comic book)

English
The Baby Smurf
Original title	Le Bébé Schtroumpf
Story	Peyo
Artwork	Peyo
Colorist	Peyo
Publisher	Dpuis
Year of publication	1984

For the uses, see Baby Smurf (disambiguation)

Baby Smurf (original French title: Le Bébé Schtroumpf) is the twelvth album of the original French-language Smurfs comic series created by Belgian artist Peyo. Apart from the titular story, it contains three more: The Handy Smurf, The Smurf Paint and A Smurfy Party. The English edition of the comic book story released by Papercutz has "A Smurfing Party" and "The Weather-Smurfing Machine" as its additional stories, along with a preview of "The Red Taxis" from the Benny Breakiron comic book series.

Plots

NOTE: The following is simply an interpretation of the action shown in the comic book panels.

Baby Smurf

In The Cartoon: "Once In A Blue Moon"

During a blue moon night, a stork leaves a baby Smurf at the door of a Smurf house and leaves. The Smurfs quickly hand the baby to one another until he ends with the Smurfette. The next day, all the Smurfs converge to see the baby, save for Grouchy Smurf, who hates baby Smurfs. Brainy Smurf asks if the baby is Smurfette's, which offends her.

The baby is adopted by all Smurfs (save for Grouchy Smurf). Handy Smurf makes a bed for the baby, including a machine to swing it, but Papa Smurf opts for swinging the bed at hand. Greedy Smurf cooks a cake for the baby, but Smurfette tells him the baby is too small for cakes. Other Smurfs wash the Baby's dirty clothes. When the Baby sees Grouchy passing, he tries to imitate his gruff expression, which seems to mellow Grouchy down, but he fakes apathy when Smurfette asks him to carry the baby. Brainy asks Papa Smurf where do the baby Smurfs come from, but Papa's answer is so complicated that he still doesn't understand anything. At night, the baby crying doesn't let any Smurf sleep.

The next day, the Smurfs prepare a party in Baby Smurf's honor, but the stork arrives with a note saying that the Baby was a "delivery error" and must be taken away. Everybody is upset, but they don't have any option but return the baby. However, they soon find that Grouchy Smurf has escaped with the baby. The Smurfs seek for Grouchy and the Baby throughout the forest. Grouchy manages to avert to be found, but then he decides to return to the village after noticing the many dangers the Baby would face in the forest.

After the Smurfs give the Baby back to the stork, life in the village turns sad; even Jokey Smurf and the Smurf getting his trademark explosive present try to laugh but end crying. That same night, the stork returns with the Baby, with a note saying that Grouchy Smurf's care for the baby has caused the baby to be allowed to stay with the Smurfs.

The Handy Smurf

Handy Smurf creates a drill, but he begins to try it on everything (the water pump, Harmony Smurf's flute, etc), which causes trouble for the Smurfs' daily lives. When he's found out, the other Smurfs catch him and make a new invention to punish him: a Handy Smurf butt-kicking machine.

The Smurf Paint

The Smurfs try to paint the village to restore it, and some of them add their "personal touch" to the labor. Several Smurfs have difficulties painting, so Handy Smurf creates a paint-spraying system, which he makes work with Harmony Smurf's help. Meanwhile, Gargamel creates an invisible paint, and uses it on himself to follow some Smurfs to the village. While Papa Smurf goes to his lab to make a formula against Gargamel, Handy and Harmony spray paint on Gargamel, making him visible. Gargamel, blinded by the paint, goes stumbling back at his own house. He decides to use a formula to become a dragon, but accidentally drops the remaining invisible paint on the book with the formula. At the village, Papa Smurf still works on his formula, not knowing that Gargamel has already left.

A Smurfy Party

Gargamel finds that the Smurfs are organizing a party, so he disguises as a bunny to ask them to invite him. The Smurfs inmediately recognise Gargamel, but bring him (blindfolded) to the village to give him a lesson. Papa Smurf drops an almidon-based solution on Gargamel, who is inmobilised. The party continues until a sudden rain dissolves the solution and Gargamel gets free. However, a Smurf ties Gargamel's feet to a rocket that sends him away to the forest, where a fox sees the bunny-disguised Gargamel and starts chasing him.

Publication and Other Media

• This book takes several details from the Smurfs TV series:
  • Smurfette lives in the Smurf Village.
  • Most of the Smurfs begin to use personalized costumes (Handy with overalls, Vanity with a flower on his bonnet, etc). Baker Smurf and Vanity Smurf had sporadically used their "own" costumes before, but from this album on, it becomes permanent.
  • The Smurf in Baker attires is Greedy Smurf. Later stories show Baker and Greedy as separate characters.

• "The Handy Smurf" features cameos of Sweepy Smurf (more similar to the PVC figure than his animated appearance) and a Nurse Smurf. The story itself would be printed in English in The Return Of The Smurfette.
• The Party story has Hefty Smurf and Brainy Smurf actually agreeing with each other. When Hefty is slamming his sledge hammer on Gargamel's foot Brainy (with a smile on his face) goes that "Papa Smurf always says that you shouldn't smurf and enemy when he's down." with Hefty going "Yeah *BOOM* you're right. *BANG* I will never *BASH* do it again."
• "The Handy Smurf," "The Smurf Paint," "A Smurfy Party" were originally titled "Happy Smurfday" (Fr. "Bon anniverschtroumpf"), "Of Smurfs and Colors" (Fr. "Des Schtroumpfs et des couleurs"), and "The Smurfs and the Great Rabbit" (Fr. "Les Schtroumpfs et le grand lapin") respectively. They are the earliest comic stories to appear after the cartoon series debuted in 1981.
• Baby Smurf is the first comic adaptation of a cartoon episode ("Once in a Blue Moon").