Pieter de Poortere was born in Ghent in 1976. In 2000 he started as a freelance illustrator and in 2001 released his first 'Dickie' album ('Boerke' in Flemish) which immediately won the prize for Best Dutch-language Album of the Year. Many albums later and 'Dickie' is now translated into 8 languages and a 52 episode animation series aired in several European countries. A second series quickly followed. Since 2014 there has been a permanent exhibition of the character in the Comic Arts Museum Brussels where De Poortere recently became chairman.