Martin Berthommier studied Decorative Arts in Paris, and found employment with Bayard Presse in 1971. He started out as a model maker for Record magazine and was then art director for the children's magazines J'Aime Lire (1977) and Astrapi (1978). For the first issue of the Astrapi, he created the big yellow dog 'Touffu'. Touffu's adventures have been collected in several albums until 2001, and were also published in Chinese (as 'Tofu') and in the Dutch magazine Okki (as 'Blafferd'). In addition, Martin Berthommier has illustrated children's books. He passed away in 2008 at the age of 61.
