Casterman is a publisher of Franco-Belgian comics, specializing in comic books and children's literature. The company is based in Tournai, 90 kilometres southwest of the centre of Brussels, Belgium.
History The company was founded in 1780 by Donat-Joseph Casterman,Bocquet, José-Louis, and Fromental, Jean-Luc. The Adventures of Hergé (Drawn and Quarterly, 2011). who began as a bookseller and binder before moving into publishing and printing. As a printing company and publishing house, Casterman positioned itself in the market for books aimed at children, which developed in the 19th century despite Belgium's relatively late adoption of compulsory schooling. The firm's colour printing technology enabled it to produce the richly-decorated covers known as cartonnages romantiques. Michael Twyman has compared the visual vocabulary used in Casterman's book covers to that of French publishers such as Mame of Tours (a leader in the mass production of books).Twyman, Michael: A history of chromolithography. British Library and Printing Historical Society, London. 2013
In the 20th century the firm was important in the career of Hergé. In 1934, Casterman took over the Le Petit Vingtième editions for the publication of the albums of The Adventures of Tintin, from the fourth album of the series, Cigars of the Pharaoh. From 1942, Casterman published reworked versions and colored versions of the previous Tintin albums.
Strengthened by the success of Hergé's comics, shortly after, Casterman proposed new series with new authors such as Jacques Martin, François Craenhals and C. & V. Hansen. From 1954 on, Casterman published children's books, as well, including the successful Martine books by Marcel Marlier and the Cadet- Rama books written by Alain Gree (units Achille et Bergamote and Petit Tom).
Keen to appeal to a more mature market, Casterman decided in 1973 to publish the first albums of Corto Maltese by the Italian author Hugo Pratt. In approximately 1975 to 1976, Casterman began to change their logo to the current one seen today. This old logo looked like the current one, but rather with capitalized, thinner and slightly more spaced out letters. In 1978, Casterman established its monthly magazine A Suivre, which was to influence the comics revival of the 1980s. Casterman ceased the publication of A Suivre in 1997.
Casterman's manga series are published under the imprint Sakka.
Main publications Comics series This is a selected list of comics series, ordered by year of first publication by Casterman, with main authors given. A few series were also continued or temporarily taken over by other artists and writers. 1929: The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé 1930: Quick & Flupke by Hergé 1934: Popol Out West by Hergé 1949: The Adventures of Alix by Jacques Martin 1952: The Adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko by Hergé 1958: Rasmus Klump by Carla and Vilhelm Hansen 1973: Yakari by Job and Derib, Joris Chamblain 1975: Corto Maltese by Hugo Pratt 1976: The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec by Jacques Tardi 1978: Inspector Canardo by Benoît Sokal 1983: Le Chat by Philippe Geluck 1986: Chninkel by Jean Van Hamme and Grzegorz Rosiński
Books series 1954: Martine by Marcel Marlier and Gilbert Delahaye 2004: CHERUB by Robert Muchamore 2010: Henderson's Boys by Robert Muchamore
Magazines 1975: Fluide Glacial 1978: À Suivre 2003: Bang ! 2016: Pandora
Archive Casterman is no longer a family firm. It became part of Groupe Flammarion,Casterman Printing à Tournai : 5 travailleurs repris par un groupe néerlandais, Rtbf.be, 1er décembre 2016. which since 2012 has been part of Groupe Madrigall, the parent company of several publishing houses. The company archive however has remained in Tournai, where it is now housed in a branch of the Belgian State Archives. Although the archive has yet to be fully catalogued, it has been assessed as being remarkably complete.
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