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.
In the late 1980s, another character of the same species, distinct from the pet Marsupilami owned by Spirou and Fantasio, got its own successful spin-off series of comic albums entitled Marsupilami, written by Greg, Yann, and Dugomier, and drawn by Batem. The 1987 release of the first Marsupilami album marked the debut publication of the publishing house Marsu Productions, which was named after the character.
Marsupilami has since become a multimedia franchise, with multiple animated series, a feature film, a Marsupilami Sega Genesis video game and a variety of other merchandise. The asteroid 98494 Marsupilami is named in its honour.
Marsupilami's adventures had been translated to several languages, like Dutch, German, Greek, Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Italian and several Scandinavian languages. The most recent English translations are published by the British publishing house Cinebook. More than three million albums of the Marsupilami series are claimed to have been sold by Marsu Productions.
In 2013, Dupuis bought Marsu Productions and its characters, thereby allowing a new production of Spirou & Fantasio adventures including the Marsupilami. The Marsupilami returned to the Spirou & Fantasio series in the album La Colère du Marsupilami, released in 2016.
Source : Wikipedia
