Gaston is a Belgian gag-a-day comic strip created in 1957 by the Belgian cartoonist André Franquin in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou. The series focuses on the everyday life of Gaston Lagaffe, a lazy and accident-prone office junior who works at Spirou's office in Brussels. Gaston is very popular in large parts of Europe and has been translated into over a dozen languages, but except for a few pages by Fantagraphics in the early 1990s, there was no English translation until Cinebook began publishing English language editions of Gaston books in July, 2017.
André Franquin was an influential Belgian comics artist, whose best-known creations are Gaston and Marsupilami. He also produced the Spirou et Fantasio comic strip from 1946 to 1968, a period seen by many as the series' golden age.
Zorglub is a fictional character in the Belgian comic strip Spirou et Fantasio, created by Greg and André Franquin, and first appeared in the serialised story Z comme Zorglub in Spirou magazine in 1959, later published in the diptych albums "Z comme Zorglub" (1961) and "L'ombre du Z" (1962). Zorglub's character was initially that of a sinister megalomaniac, mad scientist, but also a clumsy and bungling one who later reformed and became a friend and ally to the protagonists.
Philippe Vandevelde, working under the pseudonym Tome, was a Belgian comics writer. He was known for collaborations with Janry on Spirou et Fantasio and Le Petit Spirou, and with Luc Warnant and later Bruno Gazzotti on Soda. He also collaborated with Ralph Meyer on Berceuse assassine, and with Marc Hardy on Feux. Earlier in his career he was an assistant-artist for Dupa.
Jean-Richard Geurts, perhaps better known under his pseudonym Janry, is a Belgian comics artist. With Tome he created Le Petit Spirou and made several Spirou et Fantasio albums.
Marsupilami is a comic book character and fictional animal species created by André Franquin. Its first appearance was in the 31 January 1952 issue of the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou. Since then it appeared regularly in the popular Belgian comics series Spirou & Fantasio, as a pet of the main characters, until Franquin stopped working on the series; the character's final appearance in the series during Franquin's lifetime was in 1970.
Spirou is a weekly Franco-Belgian comics magazine published by the Dupuis company since April 21, 1938. It's an anthology magazine with new features appearing regularly, containing a mix of short humor strips and serialized features, of which the most popular series would be collected as albums by Dupuis afterwards.
Zantafio is a recurring fictional antagonist in the Spirou et Fantasio comic book series. He was created by André Franquin and first appeared in Spirou et les héritiers (1952). Zantafio bears a strong resemblance to Fantasio, because they are cousins. In Le dictateur et le champignon (1953), he is a South-American dictator of the fictional country Palombia.
Spirou & Fantasio is one of the most popular classic Franco-Belgian comics. The series, which has been running since 1938, shares many characteristics with other European humorous adventure comics like The Adventures of Tintin, Lucky Luke, and Asterix. It has been written and drawn by a succession of artists.
Éditions Dupuis S.A. is a Belgian publisher of comic albums and magazines.
Seccotine is a recurring character from the Spirou et Fantasio comics, and the first major female character of the series, a strong-willed reporter. She was created by André Franquin, and made her first appearance in La turbotraction serialised in 1953 and published in the album La corne de rhinocéros in 1955.
Spirou is a Belgian comic strip character and protagonist in the comic strip series Spirou & Fantasio and Le Petit Spirou, and the eponymous character of the Belgian comic strip magazine Spirou.
Spirou et les hommes-bulles, written and drawn by Franquin, is the seventeenth album of the Spirou et Fantasio series. The title story appeared sequentially in Le Parisien Libéré, and only the accompanying story Les petits formats was serialised in Spirou magazine as well, before both were published in a hardcover album in 1964.
Virus, written by Tome and drawn by Janry, is the 33rd album of the Spirou et Fantasio series, and the first to come from this creative team, carrying on the series after the work of previous authors. The story was initially serialised in Spirou magazine before being released by Dupuis as a hardcover album in 1984.
La jeunesse de Spirou, written by Tome and drawn by Janry, is the thirty-eighth album of the Spirou et Fantasio series, and the sixth of the authors. The stories were serialised in Spirou magazine before they were compiled as a hardcover album in 1987. This eventually launched the formal spin-off series Le Petit Spirou.
Marsu Productions, or simply Marsu, is a publishing house and licensing and merchandising company located in Monaco, managing Franco-Belgian comics characters and copyright concerns, chiefly from the comics universe of André Franquin. The name Marsu refers to one of Franquin's best known characters, the Marsupilami, but the company also handles the character universes of Gaston Lagaffe, Le Petit Noël, Les Monstres, as well as François Walthéry's Natacha and Le P'tit bout d'chique, and Léonid et Spoutnika by Yann and Philippe Bercovici among others.
Noël, or Le Petit Noël, is the main character of an eponymous Belgian comics series, and a secondary character of Spirou et Fantasio. His name means "Christmas" in French. The series Noël was created in 1957 by André Franquin and Jidéhem and published in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou, while Franquin created the following work alone or together with Will.
Marcel Denis was a French-speaking Belgian comics creator. He was the creator of the series Hultrasson and Les Frères Clips in Spirou magazine. He also made two episodes of Tif et Tondu. He was a part of the so-called Marcinelle School, influenced by Jijé and André Franquin.
Spip is a fictional Eurasian red squirrel and a main character in the Belgian comic strip Spirou et Fantasio. He is Spirou's pet and was the first recurring supporting character in the series.
