The Dupuis publishing house celebrates its 100th birthday
Having founded his printing works in Marcinelle in 1828, which was to become a jewel of Charleroi industry, Jean Dupuis created his own publishing house in 1922 and launched Les bonnes soirées, an illustrated magazine aimed at a female audience, which was a breakthrough at the time.
Two years later, Jean Dupuis, a real genius when it came to discovering new needs, launched Le Moustique, a "Weekly Humorous Journal", which included radio programmes, in a real first. But it was the creation, in 1938, of the Journal de Spirou that would be his most remarkable exploit in that it was the vessel for the avant-garde of Belgian comic strip. The magazine Spirou was the launching pad for Franquin, Morris and Jijé, the three authors who formed the Marcinelle school, in the "atom" or "dark line" style. His pages saw the development of Spirou, Tif and Tondu, Billy & Buddy, Lucky Luke, Buck Danny, the Smurfs, Natacha, Gaston, Yoko Tsuno, Papyrus, Les Tuniques bleues, Melusine, Cedric, Largo Winch and others. And Dupuis also published all these heroes' adventures in the form of albums.
To mark its 100th birthday, the famous publisher of Marcinelle announced the return of Gaston Lagaffe; let's hope he is the first but not the only one to make a comeback and guarantee more happy hours of reading.