Dupuis

Early years

Dupuis was founded in 1922 by Jean Dupuis (1875–1952).

The growth of Dupuis towards becoming the leading comic book editor of Belgium started in 1938, when Dupuis added to its portfolio a men's magazine (Le moustique [the mosquito] in French, Humoradio in Dutch), a women's magazine (Bonnes Soirées [good evenings] in French, De Haardvriend [the hearth's friend] in Dutch) and the children's comics magazine Spirou.^[1] The latter was originally only 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.^[2]

Growth after WWII

After some difficulties during the war (mainly because of the scarcity of paper towards the end of it, but also because American comics weren't allowed to be published anymore), Dupuis started to grow quickly. Le moustique became one of the leading magazines with information on radio and (later) television programs in Belgium, and Spirou was one of the two leading Franco-Belgian comics magazines (together with Tintin magazine).^[3]

Dupuis started publishing some books as well, but had real success by republishing the comics that had appeared as serials in the magazine, collected as albums afterwards. Sometimes these were one shots, but mainly they came in series. Dupuis has some of the best-selling European comic series, including Lucky Luke, The Smurfs, Gaston Lagaffe and Largo Winch.^[4] Many of these comic albums have been reprinted constantly for thirty or forty years, thereby generating constant revenue for the editor.

Stabilization and diversification

In the early sixties, Dupuis started with other activities, including the merchandising of its comic series (puppets, posters, etc.), and the making of animated movies. Most of these weren't very successful but further raised the visibility of their comics. Still, towards the end of the 1960s, the golden age of Dupuis seemed to be over. Some of the magazines were struggling, the merchandising activities were vastly reduced, and the movie studio did not seem to be producing any successful movies. But the core business, the comics and the main magazines, 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, and are being sold as movies and comics throughout Europe. Dupuis has also started producing computer games.

In June 2004, Dupuis was bought by Média-Participations, which now owns almost all major European comic book publishers, including Dargaud and Le Lombard,^[5] More recently, in 2015, Dupuis joined with twelve other European comics publishing actors to create Europe Comics, a digital initiative co-funded by the European Commission's Creative Europe program.^[6]

In August 2007, Dupuis had increased its animation production activites when they alongside its parent Média-Participations had partnered with Belgian broadcasting network RTBF to form an in-house Belgian graphic & animation production studio called DreamWall, the new animation studio will be located in Marcinelle, Charleroi and would handle all animation services for all of the animated television series produced by Dupuis' production arm Dupuis Audiovisuel and its fellow animation studios Dargaud Media and Ellipsanime Productions alongside outside studios starting with the television series Cedric with Dupuis holding a 51% in the new animation studio and RTBF holding a 49% in the new studio.^[7][8]

In March 2013, Dupuis who owned a minority stake in Marsu Productions announced that they're buying out and taking full control of publishing house Marsu Productions along with their catalogue, thus bringing their publishing activities and the Marsupilami franchise back to their original publisher Dupuis.^[9]

In January 2019, Dupuis announced that they've launched their first European webtoon production subsidiary and platform dedicated to European and African authors named Webtoon Factory.^[10]

In January 2024, Dupuis announced that their manga publishing imprint Vega Dupuis had joined forces with Japanese manga publishing company Kadokawa to launch a joint venture business named Vega SAS to publish Japanese and Korean comics for the French language markets alongside Kadokawa's own titles which will be their focus with Kadokawa acquiring a 51% stake in Dupuis's imprint Vega Dupuis whilst Dupuis retaining the 49% stake in the imprint.^[11][12]

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.

History

In 1959, six years before Dupuis Edition & Audiovisuel was established, Dupuis had another production house when Dupuis and Charles Dupuis the son of Dupuis' founder Jean Dupuis had launched their own animation studio named TVA Dupuis which became famous for producing their first animated series in black and white based on the popular comic series The Smurfs, which was their first adaptation.

In September 2002, Dupuis Audiovisuel via its distribution division Dupuis Audiovisuel International had appointex sales management Christophe Vervaeke to handle Dupuis Audiovisuel's licensing rights for the Dutch-speaking countries.^[14]

In September 2019, Dupuis Audiovisuel partnered with Smurfs owner & global licensor IMPS (now Peyo Company) under Peyo Productions to produce a television reboot of the global comic franchise The Smurfs.^[15][16]

In June 2022, during the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Dupuis Edition & Audiovisuel alongside their parent company Dupuis and its owner Media Participations brought all of their French animation production labels (which were Dupuis Edition & Audiovisuel, Dargaud Media and Ellipsanime Productions alongside their in-house Paris & Angoulême-based animation production studio division Ellipse Studio) under one umbrella group named Ellipse Animation.^[17]

Filmography