 Franquin, who had previously worked for the publishing house Dupuis, 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" 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.