Marsupilami

In the Palombian jungle lives Mr. Marsupilami, Mrs Marsupilami and their three children, Bobo, Bibi and Bibu. Agile and generous, greedy and mischievous, Mr. Marsupilami does his best to give his family a nice, peaceful life in the heart of the Palombian rainforest. But there are many who seek out his black-spotted yellow pelt... but on their own head be it ! 

Marsupilami is a comic book character created by André Franquin, first published on 31 January 1952 in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou. Since then it appeared regularly in the popular Belgian comics series Spirou et Fantasio until Franquin stopped working on the series in 1968 and the character dropped out soon afterward. In the late 1980s, the Marsupilami got its own successful spin-off series of comic albums, Marsupilami, written by Greg, Yann and Dugomier and drawn by Batem, launching the publishing house Marsu Productions. Later, two animated shows featuring this character, as well as the Marsupilami Sega Genesis video game and a variety of other merchandise followed. 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 and several Scandinavian languages. More than three million albums of the Marsupilami series are claimed to have been sold by Marsu Productions.

One album of Spirou and Fantasio featuring Marsupilami, number 15, was translated to English by Fantasy Flight Publishing in 1995, although it is currently out of print. Plans on releasing number 16 ended halfway through the translation process, due to bad sales. In 2007, Egmont's subsidiary Euro Books translated albums number 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 14 for the Indian market. In 2013, Dupuis bought Marsu Productions and its characters, thereby allowing a new production of Spirou and Fantasio adventures including Marsupilami.

The marsupilami is a black-spotted yellow monkey-like creature with dog-like ears. Male marsupilamis have an incredibly long, strong, flexible, prehensile tail, used for almost any task. Female marsupilamis have a much shorter tail, but still long compared to real animals. Both the male and female are able to use their tail as a weapon, by tightening the end into a fist and the remainder of the tail into a spring-like spiral for maximal force. This attack was responsible for the Danish and Norwegian translators choosing words similar to "spiral" over "marsupial" as the creature's name. Unlike the males, the females also walk on the tips of their toes. When the animal rebounds, he makes the noise: "Boing". Males also have eyes that are not completely separate while females have two separate eyes. Female marsupilamis also have a totally different voice than the males. Males say "houba" most of the time, while females say "houbii". According to the L'Encyclopédie du Marsupilami, they are monotremes like the platypus and echidna, which explains why they lay eggs while having mammalian features.

"The Marsupilami" refers originally to the individual captured and then adopted by Spirou and Fantasio, which they never bothered to name because he was the only known specimen. The Spirou et Fantasio album Le nid des Marsupilamis is mostly concerned with a documentary-within-the-comic about the life of a family of marsupilamis still living in the wild in Palombia. The spin-off comics later drawn by Batem star those, and the title of the series now refers to the - also unnamed - father in this family, and not to Spirou's original Marsupilami.

In these series, Marsupilami's wife is referred to as Marsupilamie (a female version of the name) but their three young are named, respectively, Bibi, Bibu and Bobo. Mars le noir (Mars the Black) is another specimen, which first appears in the album Mars le Noir. A former captive marsupilami, he first finds it hard to live again in the forest. After failing to seduce Marsupilamie, he becomes jealous of Marsupilami and nearly gets into a fight with him. Later, he meets a black female marsupilami, named Vénus, who becomes his mate. In Baby Prinz, another specimen, an elderly male who lives in a zoo, is featured. Altogether, that comes to eight specimens in Palombia, plus Spirou and Fantasio's pet. Marsupilamis can come in colours of yellow, yellow with black spots, dark blue, white, white with black spots, and dark blue with yellow spots. They can also be black. Only the yellow, yellow with black spots and dark blue marsupilami's show up in cartoon.