With the year of the Sponge continuing to gain traction, Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products has signed a number of deals across its portfolio.

A multi-year deal with France’s Bayard Presse will see a first-time bi-monthly SpongeBob SquarePants-branded magazine for the territory. With a premium attached, the mag will be available starting April 1 at retail, including bookstores and kiosks.

NVCP has also extended its current deal with local biscuit maker, NV Biscuits Delacre for Dora the Explorer vanilla-flavored biscuits in Austria, Germany and Switzerland at all supermarket and food stores, also from April 1.

Over in the Netherlands, where Toys ‘R’ Us has been rebranded Toys XL, NVCP has snapped up a permanently positioned POS for Dora and Diego in its Utrecht shop.

And in the UK, SpongeBob’s 10-year celebration continues, as the SpongeBob and the Big Wave DVD launches April 6, with vidgame publisher THQ releasing Frantic Fry Cook for the Nintendo DS has just launched. Paramount Home Entertainment is also on board to rollout six SpongeBob titles, which is twice their usual number of titles per year, and SonyBMG is releasing a SpongeBob SquarePants Greatest Hits CD. Fashion-wise, retail chain TopMan is launching a third SpongeBob t-shirt style and branded boxers shorts.