Éditions Dupuis S.A. (French: [dypɥi]) is a Belgian publisher of comic albums and magazines, founded in 1922 and currently owned by French/Belgian media conglomerate Média-Participations. It is the publisher of comics such as Spirou et Fantasio, Gaston, and The Smurfs. Based in Marcinelle near Charleroi, Dupuis is most widely known for its comic albums and magazines. Initially a French language publisher, it now publishes in both French and Dutch.
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History
Early years
Dupuis was founded in 1922 by Jean Dupuis (1875–1952). In 1938, Dupuis began publishing the men's magazine Le moustique (The Mosquito in French, Humoradio in Dutch), the women's magazine Bonnes Soirées (Good Evenings in French, De Haardvriend (The Hearth's Friend) in Dutch) and the children's comics magazine Spirou. The latter was originally only published in French, and contained a mixture of American comics (e.g. Superman, Brick Bradford, and Red Ryder) and new creations (Spirou et Fantasio and Tif et Tondu). A few months later, a Dutch edition called Robbedoes followed.
Growth after WWII
After the end of the paper shortages and American comic bans that came as a result of World War Two, Dupuis began expanding. Le moustique was becoming more popular, and Spirou grew to be one of the two leading Franco-Belgian comics magazines (together with Tintin magazine). Dupuis started publishing books, and found success republishing serial comics as albums. Dupuis acquired many popular European comics, including Lucky Luke, The Smurfs, Gaston Lagaffe and Largo Winch.
Stabilization and diversification
In the early sixties, Dupuis began selling merchandise and producing animated movies featuring characters from their comics. Towards the end of the 1960s, Dupuis began to decrease in popularity. Some magazines were struggling, the merchandising was vastly reduced, and the movie studio did not produce any successful movies. The core business' comics and main magazines, however, continued to be hugely successful, with a comics catalogue of more than 2000 titles available in French. Many of the series were turned into animated movies in the 1990s, including Papyrus and Spirou et Fantasio, at which point they also began producing computer games.
In June 2004, Dupuis was bought by Média-Participations, a media conglomerate that now owns many European comic book publishers, including Dargaud and Le Lombard,
In August 2007, Dupuis increased its animation production activities when they partnered with Belgian broadcasting network RTBF to form an in-house Belgian graphic & animation production studio called DreamWall, with Dupuis holding a 51% stake and RTBF holding a 49% stake in the new studio while Thibault Baras became DreamWall's managing director.. The animation studio is located at Marcinelle in Charleroi and would handle all animation services for all of the animated television series produced by Dupuis' production subsidiary Dupuis Audiovisuel, and its fellow animation studios Dargaud Media and Ellipsanime Productions, among others. When DreamWall was established it was originally temporary located at RTBF's headquarters at Reyers Tower in Schaerbeek, Brussels before it moved to its current headquarters right next to Dupuis' main in-house publishing headquarters in June 2008 and was remained there since. Before DreamWall was formed, Thibault Baras had established and developed Belgium's first virtual reality production set for weather graphics & virtual production assets for news broadcasts, magazine programming & sports/live events for the broadcaster RTBF in 2005.
On August 20, 2008, Dupuis rebranded its logo, replacing its former speech bubble logo. The new logo was in a purple sans-serif font, with the hat of the comic book character Spirou.
At the start of April 2010, DreamWall had partnered with Dame Blanche, Victor Studio, FDP Production, and Virtualis to establish a new investment fund and tax shelter framework entitled Go West Invest.
Main publications
This is a selection of magazines and comics series originally or mainly published by Dupuis. Some titles later changed to a different publisher.
Magazines
Moustique (created as "Moustique" in 1924, named "Télémoustique" between the 1960s and 2011) and its Flemish counterpart HUMO (since 1936, originally called "Humoradio"). Both versions have been sold to other publishers.
Spirou, since 1938: between 1938 and 2005 also a Flemish version, "Robbedoes".
Comics series
This is a selected list of comics series, ordered by year of first publication by Dupuis, with main authors given. Many series were also continued or temporarily taken over by other artists and writers. Some of the series have been taken over by other publishers.