Active creator shops
Independent cartoonists, illustrators, and small-press publishers selling original work through Comicalia as of December 2024.
Founded in a Brooklyn studio in 2017 by Mara Quiles, a former Dark Horse editor, and Devon Park, a payments engineer who'd grown tired of watching independent cartoonists wait ninety days for a single invoice to clear.
The company is still founder-led. Mara chairs editorial and the 14-person curation team; Devon still reviews every line of the payments and rights-protection stack. They answer their own creator email on weekends — a habit their investors have politely asked them to stop.
CHRONOLOGY
Seven years of building the world's largest independent-creator comic marketplace.
A short record of the milestones that put Comicalia on the map — from a two-person studio above a Brooklyn bakery to a nine-country operation that paid out $48M to independent cartoonists last year.
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2017 OCTOBER
A studio above a bakery in Williamsburg.
Mara Quiles and Devon Park incorporate Comicalia at 145 Berry Street with twelve creator shops, one fulfillment partner in Queens, and a hand-built checkout that didn't crash on weekends. The first sale — a 32-page risograph zine by cartoonist Hyun-Joo Lee — clears nine days later. It is still framed above the door.
FOUNDING -
2022 MARCH
$14.2M Series A, led by Index Ventures.
Five years in, the team closes a $14.2M Series A led by Index Ventures, with participation from a syndicate of Spotifounder-backed angels and three independent comic-shop owners who had become the platform's most vocal early users. The capital funds the print-on-demand integrations and the editorial curation team that would launch the following spring.
CAPITAL -
2024 JULY
Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award (Digital).
Comicalia wins the 2024 Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award in the Digital Category, cited by the jury for "doing more to put money directly into the hands of independent cartoonists than any platform of the last decade." The award is the first given to a marketplace rather than a brick-and-mortar retailer in the category's 32-year history.
RECOGNITION -
2024 DECEMBER
$48M in gross creator payouts. 19,400 active shops.
The platform closes its seventh year with $48M in gross creator payouts, 19,400+ active shops, 312,000+ unique titles in catalog, and a median creator earning of $2,400 per month after twelve months on platform. The two-person studio above the bakery has become a 38-person distributed company across nine countries — still founder-led, still answering weekend email.
TODAY
A DOSSIER · FY 2024
The numbers that define Comicalia in 2024.
A scannable ledger of the verified facts that press, partners, and prospective creators most often ask us for. Every figure below is independently auditable on our annual transparency report.
Unique titles in catalog
Zines, graphic novels, single issues, art books, and hardcovers — every one uploaded and curated by a living creator.
Gross creator payouts, 2024
Paid directly to cartoonists and publishers across 74 countries. The platform's eighth consecutive year of double-digit growth.
Verified buyer accounts
Read-collectors across 74 countries, growing 41% year-over-year since 2019. Every account verified by email and payment fingerprint.
Trustpilot rating
Across 87,000+ verified reviews — the highest sustained rating of any creator-economy marketplace in the comic vertical.
Creator revenue share
Of every sale, before fees. The highest in the comic industry, vs. 50–70% on legacy platforms. No listing fees, no monthly minimums.
Median time to first sale
From the moment a creator publishes their first title to a paid order clearing. The industry benchmark is 90+ days. Ours is eleven.
Independent comic-shop partners
Brick-and-mortar retailers running our "Comicalia Picks" endcap program, surfacing a hand-picked emerging creator each month.
THE COLOPHON
Now you've met us — go open your shop.
No listing fees. No monthly minimums. Eighty-eight percent of every sale, paid out every Friday. Your first title can be live before lunch.
Free to set up. Free to publish. We make our money when you make yours.