showcase for Dupuis and a method to test new artists and series before doing the sizable investment of an album series. After experiments to target a more mature audience in the late 1970s and in the 1980s with the supplement Le Trombone Illustré and the publication of comics like XIII and Jeremiah, the focus is again fixed on humour series and an audience of young teenagers. Now famous artists like Bernard Hislaire, Zep, Tome, Janry or Midam debut or still publish in the magazine. But next to the magazine, Dupuis, like all the other editors, targets the older audience as well with a collection of graphic novels. Both Lombard and Dupuis have since been bought by the French media concern Média Participations, but retain a large degree of independence. In Flanders, this period started with the appearance of two new successful newspaper comics, Bakelandt by Hec Leemans and the extremely successful Kiekeboe by Merho. But they seemed to be at the same time the final successes of a slowly dying system, and comics in Flanders are more and more centered around albums as well. Successful series and authors are few and far between, and most, like Urbanus or F. C. De Kampioenen, are only a local success. A few peripheral figures like Ever Meulen, who is mainly an illustrator, or Kamagurka, who is more of a cartoonist, do become successful in Wallonia, France and the Netherlands, but apart from those exceptions, the main method for Flemish comics artists to become successful is still being published by the three French language publishers. Some of the most successful of these since the 1960s are William Vance, Jo-El Azara, Griffo, Marvano, Jean-Pol, Jan Bosschaert and Luc Cromheecke. Importance Sales While until 1930 almost all comics published in Belgium were either French or American, due to the success of Tintin in 1950 almost no foreign comics are published in Belgium anymore, and by 1960 many or even most comics read in other Western European countries (excluding the United Kingdom) are made by Belgians or for Belgian magazines. By 1944, 275,000 albums of Tintin had been sold: by 2000, the worldwide sales had multiplied to nearly 200 million. In 2000, almost 40 million albums were printed in Belgium each year: 75% of those were exported. An estimated 75% of the comics sold in France were made by the three large Belgian comics publishers, Dupuis, Le