This article examines the origin and reception of Les Nombrils, a series created by Québécois authors Marc Delaf and Maryse Dubuc in the teen magazine Safarir in 2004, before being exported the following year to Spirou, a Belgian magazine widely distributed in France. During the exportation process, conscious choices were made to attract a new and younger audience: the series’ Québécois elements (notably vocabulary) disappeared and its nastiness was softened. Through a detailed analysis of the eight albums released, interviews with drawing assistants and a review of the authors’ exchanges with their fans, notably via the Facebook page they administer, this article aims to highlight strategies used to erase the series’ Québécois elements in order to adapt it for a French‐speaking European audience. Over the course of the publication, while Les Nombrils achieved remarkable public success, Québécois characteristics reappeared sporadically in sets or in cultural references, but remained discreet around the question of language. Now more visibly American, the series’ nature is no longer perceived to be Québécois as such.