Dargaud

Dargaud is a French comic book publisher who was known among other things, by the comic magazine Pilote ( 1959-1989 ). Dargaud belongs since 1987 to the French-Belgian media group Média -Participations to which, among other things Dupuis and Le Lombard belong.

Éditions Dargaud

Georges Dargaud founded in 1943 Éditions Dargaud as a marketing and printing company. Over time, the company diversified. The publishing house published in the meantime more than 150 titles, from the car magazine to DIY magazine.

1960 George Dargaud bought the comic magazine Pilote, which was a few months earlier founded by René Goscinny, Jean -Michel Charlier and Albert Uderzo. Under this label bestsellers such as Asterix, Blueberry and Tanguy & Laverdure were published. Within a short time the high-circulation albums and the sale of the license rights were the mainstay of the publisher. With the acquisition of the comic magazine Charlie Mensuel 1982 Dargaud was at the time the largest comic book publisher in Europe. In 1984, 40% of European comics by Dargaud, there appeared over 1,500 titles with a total of over 20 million copies.

In 1987, George Dargaud sat to rest and sold his publishing group Média -Participations, who tried to align the title to conservative Catholic values. Important writers such as Enki Bilal and Philippe Druillet then left the publisher.

Groupe Dargaud

The new owner Média -Participations ordered the comic activities for Groupe Dargaud, all foreign comic titles were assigned to other divisions of the media group. In 1992, the publishing house Le Lombard in the group, which was also purchased in 1986. In addition to print media builds Groupe Dargaud on animated films, merchandising and multimedia. For this, the group from 1994 to 2003, bought some well-known animation studios and thus obtained the cartoon rights to Tintin, Lucky Luke, Asterix and others.

Groupe Dargaud - Lombard - Dupuis

Since 2004, the acquired Dupuis publishing house belongs to the group. For some well-known authors returned to the group, whose conservative attitude has eased due to profitability considerations. The group is (again) the largest European comic publisher 2006 and controls 31 % of the turnover of the media group Média -Participations in.