Marsu Productions, or simply Marsu, is a

publishing house Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

and licensing and merchandising company located in

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

, managing Franco-Belgian comics

characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

and

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

concerns, chiefly from the

comics a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

universe of

André Franquin André Franquin (; 3 January 1924 – 5 January 1997) 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 s ...

. The name Marsu refers to one of Franquin's best known characters the

Marsupilami ''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 ...

, but the company also handles the character universes of ''

Gaston Lagaffe ''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 (whose surname means "the blund ...

'', ''

Le Petit Noël 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 Jid� ...

'', ''Les Monstres'', as well as

François Walthéry François Walthéry (born 17 January 1946 in Argenteau near Liège) is a Belgian comics artist, best known for his series featuring an adventurous flight attendant, '' Natacha''. Biography Walthéry began his career in 1962 during studies a ...

's '' Natacha'' and ''Le P'tit bout d'chique'', and ''Léonid et Spoutnika'' by Yann and

Philippe Bercovici Philippe Bercovici is a French comics artist of Franco-Belgian comics. Having illustrated a wide range of series, Bercovici is perhaps most known for ''Les Femmes en Blanc'' written by Cauvin, started in 1981. Initially under the pseudonym Thél ...

among others. Franquin, who had previously worked for the publishing house

Dupuis Éditions Dupuis S.A. () is a Belgium, Belgian publisher of comic albums and magazines. Based in Marcinelle near Charleroi, Dupuis was founded in 1922 by Jean Dupuis, and is mostly famous for its comic comics album, albums and magazines. It is ...

, decided to leave his company and start his own in 1987. He brought along his own creations ''Marsupilami'' and ''Gaston Lagaffe'', and the company soon started launching a series of ''Marsupilami'' albums continuing publication of the character Franquin had created in 1952, while working on the series ''

Spirou et Fantasio ''Spirou & Fantasio'' (french: Spirou et Fantasio, wa, Spirou eyet 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 comics, European ...

'' for the Franco-Belgian comics magazine '' Spirou''. Since Spirou and Fantasio weren't Franquin's own creations, the publisher Dupuis retained the rights to the characters. Several of the characters under Marsu management are however closely associated with this series, and ''Marsupilami'', ''Gaston Lagaffe'', and ''Le Petit Noël'' are to varying degrees spin-off series. The first publication, '' La Queue du Marsupilami'' in 1987 with art by Batem and stories by

Greg Greg is a masculine given name, and often a shortened form of the given name Gregory. Greg (more commonly spelled " Gregg") is also a surname. People with the name *Greg Abbott (disambiguation), multiple people *Greg Abel (born 1961/1962), Canadi ...

, launched its new series, which by 2007 had passed 20 issues. ''Natacha'' made the switch from Dupuis to Marsu in 1989 with the album ''Cauchemirage'', and ended serial production in ''Spirou''. In 1992, Franquin also added worldwide rights of ''Gaston Lagaffe'' to Marsu, a series he also created for ''Spirou''. The ''Marsupilami'' album numbered 0, ''

Capturez un Marsupilami ''Capturez un Marsupilami!'', written and drawn by André Franquin, is a comic album containing the adventures and short gags of the Marsupilami. Although not collected in one album until 2002, the contents are the earliest works of the original ar ...

'', the only album featuring Franquin's seminal stories, was published in 2002, some time after Franquin's death in 1997. In 2013, the publisher was bought up by its competitor

References

External links

Marsu Productions official page

Franquin official page
Comic book publishing companies of Monaco {{comics-company-stub