Archaia Entertainment

Archaia formerly known as Archaia Studios Press is an imprint of American comic book and graphic novel publisher Boom! Studios.

Archaia Entertainment, LLC was originally an American comic book publishing company established by Mark Smylie in 2002. On June 24, 2013, Archaia was acquired by Boom! Studios and became a wholly owned imprint.

History

Mark Smylie formed the company as a home for his comic book series Artesia. The original Artesia publisher, Sirius Entertainment, published the first 6 issue mini-series Artesia in 1999 and the second 6 issue mini-series Artesia Afield in 2000 in full color. But in an attempt to keep costs down, Sirius wanted to print the third series Artesia Afire in black and white. Smylie decided to take the series back from the publisher and open his own publishing outfit to finance the full color publication of the third series.

In April 2006 the company announced they would be expanding their publishing to encompass projects from third parties that were not created by original founder Mark Smylie. "It wasn't long - out of equal parts necessity and entrepreneurialism - before the New Jersey-based painter realized that simply putting out his own work, regardless of how critically acclaimed it was, simply wouldn't be enough, and, along with business partner Aki Liao, began actively searching for both new and existing material to publish under the Archaia banner." The first three titles were Mouse Guard, Robotika and The Lone and Level Sands.