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]
