Lambiek is Europe’s oldest comic book shop and home of the Comiclopedia – the online comics encyclopedia.

Amsterdam’s landmark shop, Lambiek, was founded in 1968 by Kees Kousemaker. It soon became a meeting place for all things and people related to comics. It hosted exhibitions and book signings for honoured comic creators including Will Eisner, André Franquin, Robert Crumb, Chris Ware and Scott McCloud. 

Kousemaker promoted comics as art and supported many artists over the years. He was an internationally respected comics scholar who wrote several essays and books about the subject. 

In 1994 Lambiek launched their own websites and five years later started Comiclopedia. That beige website with blue accents that you keep landing on every time you google a comics artist’s name⁠—that’s Lambiek’s Comiclopedia. 

The comics encyclopedia was a passion project for Kousemaker. A place where he could share his knowledge. He had the ambitious goal of featuring a biographical overview of every published comic artist, regardless of country or time period. To date, Comiclopedia has more than 13,900 names, making it the biggest database of cartoonists in the world.

You can read the history of Lambiek, its founder and the wonderful people who have been a part of The Story of Lambiek.

Explore the websites at lambiek.net.

You can follow Lambiek on Twitter @LambiekComics and @Comiclopedia.