Lambiek

Founding owner Kousemaker in January 1968, his gallery/store in September 1973, and a December 1980 album signing by Sjef van Oekel and Theo van den Boogaard on the right.

Only two earlier comic bookstores are known to have opened their doors on the North-American continent (or anywhere else on the world for that matter) prior to the one founded by Kousemaker; George Henderson's Canadian, Toronto-based Memory Lane Books opened in May 1967,[9] (itself a continuation of the Viking Bookshop he had already opened on another city location in the spring of 1966[10]), followed by Gary Arlington's San Francisco Comic Book Company, which was established in April 1968 in the US namesake city,[11] Making Lambiek the worldwide third-oldest comic book store in history. What the three stores had in common was that they all started out with a strong focus on underground comics. Memory Lane Books closed its doors in the 1980s, however, whereas Arlington's store went defunct in 2002,[12] leaving Lambiek as of 2023 the worldwide oldest surviving comic book store.[7][1]

Kees Kousemaker and his wife Evelien also published two encyclopedic books about comics, titled Strip voor Strip (1970) and Wordt Vervolgd (1979).[1] He and Margreet de Heer also wrote the book De Nederlandse Stripgeschiedenis (2001) and De Wereld van de Nederlandse Strip (2005) about Dutch comics and their history.[13] From 1986 on, the store gained fame by holding art exhibitions and book signings by numerous comic authors, including Robert Crumb, Will Eisner, André Franquin, Joost Swarte, Charles Burns, Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, François Avril and Art Spiegelman.[7][1]

In 2010, Lambiek's founder, Kees Kousemaker, died.[7]

Since 1 November 1999, Lambiek also hosts the Comiclopedia, a digital encyclopaedia featuring biographies of more than 14.000 international comics authors.[7][14][1]

• In 1979, Kees Kousemaker won the Zilveren Dolfijn Award.[13]
• Kousemaker received the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award in 1995.[15]
• On 9–10 October 1999, Kousemaker won the annual P. Hans Frankfurther Prize.[16]
• In 2006, Kousemaker was the recipient of the Order of Orange-Nassau medal from the Netherlands for his special dedication to the history of comic books.[17][13]
• In 2010, Lambiek employee Klaas Knol won the Hal Foster Award for his client friendly and knowledgeable presence.[18]
• On 8 February 2020, Bas Schuddeboom and Kjell Knudde, editors of the comics encyclopaedia website Comiclopedia, connected to Lambiek, won the annual P. Hans Frankfurther Prize, which they received on 13 November of that year.[14][19]

• List of online encyclopedias

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lambiek (Stripwinkel).

• Official website
  • History of the comics store Lambiek.
  • Comiclopedia
  • History of the Comiclopedia.
  • History of Dutch comics