Over 7 million followers on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube: numbers (steadily growing) reached by one of Italy’s most beloved content creators, highly appreciated by younger audiences for his books: we are talking about Pera Toons, the stage name of Alessandro Perugini, who in recent years has appeared more and more at the top spots of bookstore sales charts.
Numbers speak for themselves: 2023 was the year of consecration among the Italian bestselling authors for him: according to data provided by his publisher, Tunué, overall his comics are nearing one million copies sold. Yet in the last year, as mentioned, there was a genuine leap: in 2023 alone the publisher estimates selling 600,000 copies of his books.
The career of Alessandro Perugini, born in 1982, thus arouses a lot of curiosity, not only because of his transition from digital to print, but also because of the variety of books branded “Pera Toons” that have reached bookstores over the years, from 2018 to today: moving from volumes focused on small enigmas and puzzles to comics with broader storytelling, interspersed with releases containing a mix of one-liners, games, jokes and riddles.
We had already followed the evolution of the Pera Toons project in this interview, where Alessandro, originally a graphic designer in advertising, told us the first steps that have made him today a well-regarded content creator: “It was 2017 and Instagram was the social media of the moment: I tried creating several pages and in about three months the page dedicated to comics, Pera Comics, reached 10,000 followers.”
The name “Pera Toons” arises spontaneously, from the simple abbreviation of his surname, turning Perugini into Pera. Equally naturally Alessandro began calling his most loyal fans with the playful nickname “pere”, also giving the name “Pera” to the protagonist of many of his jokes and comic stories.
And comics have always been a constant passion for Perugini, since his adolescence. Some readings in particular were crucial in shaping his humor: the Arezzo-born author has often cited as sources of inspiration the cartoonists Leo Ortolani, creator of Rat-Man, and , the creator of the character Lupo Alberto: “Lupo Alberto used to end the panels with extraordinary punchlines that always made me think, ‘I can’t believe it!’”
Returning to Pera Toons’ personal journey, the cartoonist often recalls the creation of the format Chi ha ucciso Kenny? as one of the pivotal steps toward new and broader popularity: “Chi ha ucciso Kenny? was born after posting a riddle about a bald child, or rather a sort of puppet as I had drawn him at the time, which went viral. So I thought of creating more similar enigmas, a bit noir (…), to avoid that this violence would be perceived, I always used the same character: if you find him again, it means he never truly dies.” Kenny is indeed a recurring character not only in posts but also in Pera Toons’ books.
Starting from the success on social media, Alessandro Perugini moved into the world of books, pursuing, in parallel, both print and digital work: “The process is based on the continuous creation of jokes and new content: the more I create, the better, and I’m aware that the best of these will later serve me for the books. In the printed projects I also always include unpublished content, (…) so it’s not enough just what I post on social media.”
Pera Toons Pop-Up Shop
Among the author’s activities, comes his first pop-up store, inaugurated in Milan, at the Mondadori Duomo bookstore. The temporary shop will be open until October 18, 2026 with a collection of non-book products such as pen toppers, erasers, notebooks and more. In the ten days of opening, many activities are planned, including signings and photoshoots with the official mascots.
The animated TV series Try Not to Laugh!
The Pera Toons phenomenon also becomes a TV series: on Rai Gulp and Rai Play arrives Try Not to Laugh!, the animated series produced by the publisher Tunué in collaboration with Rai Kids. The animated series brings to the small screen “the concentrated humor and one-liners of the record-breaking cartoonist.” It is composed of 46 self-contained episodes, each 6 minutes long, and “the series represents the natural evolution of a creative journey born and grown between Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.”
And now let’s retrace what the Pera Toons books published to date are, between one-liners, riddles and ever-new stories.
Pera Toons: the book game
Laugh, It’s Better
Laugh, It’s Better (Tunué), published in 2020, is the best-selling Pera Toons book, with about 200,000 copies. It is a book game, i.e., a story that can be read normally or by jumping between pages, in the attempt to reach “the island that doesn’t exist” in the shortest possible time. The reader can choose in first person which one-liner to pick, moving between roughly thirty jokes in true Pera Toons style.
The Pera Toons books about Who Killed Kenny?
Who Killed Kenny?
