Spirou et Fantasio in the context of Asterix

André Franquin (French: [fʁɑ̃kɛ̃]; 3 January 1924 – 5 January 1997) was an influential Belgian comics artist, whose best-known creations are Gaston and Marsupilami. He also produced the Spirou et Fantasio comic strip from 1946 to 1968, a period seen by many as the series' golden age.

Gaston is a Belgian gag-a-day comic strip created in 1957 by the Belgian cartoonist André Franquin in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou. The series, serving as a spin-off of the magazine's primary series Spirou et Fantasio, focuses on the everyday life of Gaston Lagaffe (whose surname means "the blunder"), a lazy and accident-prone office junior who works at Spirou's office in Brussels. Gaston is very popular in large parts of Europe (especially in Belgium and France) and has been translated into over a dozen languages, but except for a few pages by Fantagraphics in the early 1990s (as Gomer Goof), there was no English translation until Cinebook began publishing English language editions of Gaston books (again named 'Gomer Goof') in July, 2017.

In 2023, the series was revived by Franco-Canadian author Delaf.

Spip is a fictional Eurasian red squirrel and a main character in the Belgian comic strip Spirou et Fantasio. He is Spirou's pet and was the first recurring supporting character in the series.

Champignac, or specifically Champignac-en-Cambrousse, is a fictional village frequently featured in the adventures of Spirou et Fantasio by André Franquin and the successive authors. The initial idea of Champignac is attributed to Henri Gillain. The village was introduced in the adventure Il y a un sorcier à Champignac, first published in Spirou magazine in 1950.