It was only after the runaway success of the Collection that the hardcover became the norm for album releases in France. Even though the success of the collection prompted Le Lombard to speed up its hitherto lackluster album releases, they did so initially in the predominant soft cover format until the mid-1970s like Dupuis was already doing, while maintaining the softcover format as standard for the Dutch-language editions for decades thereafter, as did Dargaud. Being a relative newcomer in the field Dargaud entered into a joint venture for the album releases with Le Lombard for nearly two decades. This meant that Dargaud album titles were released by Lombard for French-speaking Belgium (initially as soft covers in the first decade) and with a couple of years lag, for Dutch-Belgium as well (for the Netherlands and likewise with a lag, Dargaud sought out cooperation with other, local publishers for their releases), whereas Lombard album titles were released in France by Dargaud, invariably as hardcovers for their own releases, but in softcover for the first five years or so for the Lombard releases before permanently switching to hardcover, even before Lombard did for its Belgian home market. By the late 1970s, Dargaud had its own international distribution system in place, and the cooperation with Le Lombard was dissolved, that is until both were merged into a single publisher in 1992 – though maintaining their respective imprints – after they were absorbed in 1988 and 1986 respectively into the French holding company Média-Participations. Incidentally, Dupuis was in June 2004 bought by Média-Participations as well, though it has retained its separate status within the holding group because of its traditional focus on a somewhat younger readership than Dargaud/Le Lombard.
It was only after the runaway success of the Collection that the hardcover became the norm for album releases in France. Even though the success of the collection prompted Le Lombard to speed up its hitherto lackluster album releases, they did so initially in the predominant soft cover format until the mid-1970s like Dupuis was already doing, while maintaining the softcover format as standard for the Dutch-language editions for decades thereafter, as did Dargaud. Being a relative newcomer in the field Dargaud entered into a joint venture for the album releases with Le Lombard for nearly two decades. This meant that Dargaud album titles were released b,y Lombard for French-speaking Belgium (initially as soft covers in the first decade) and with a couple of years lag, for Dutch-Belgium as well (for the Netherlands and likewise with a lag, Dargaud sought out cooperation with other, local publishers for their releases), whereas Lombard album titles were released in France by Dargaud, invariably as hardcovers for their own releases, but in softcover for the first five years or so for the Lombard releases before permanently switching to hardcover, even before Lombard did for its Belgian home market. By the late 1970s Dargaud had its own international distribution system in place, and the cooperation with Le Lombard was dissolved, that is until both were merged into a single publisher in 1992 – though maintaining their respective imprints – after they were absorbed in 1988 and 1986 respectively into the French holding company Média-Participations. Incidentally, Dupuis was in June 2004 bought by Média-Participations as well, though it has retained its separate status within the holding group because of its traditional focus on a somewhat younger readership than Dargaud/Le Lombard.