Hot Property: Archaia Entertainment

When Sirius Entertainment told writer/artist Mark Smylie that they would be unable to continue publishing his epic military fantasy comic Artesia in color, Smylie had a crazy idea: he would create his own publishing imprint specifically to carry on with the full-color Artesia. Thus, Archaia Studios Press was born. Smylie quickly realized that one title does not a full fledged comic book publisher make, so he and his business partner, Aki Lao, began searching for new material to publish under the banner. Within three years, Smylie and Lao had added David Petersen’s anthropomorphic fantasy Mouse Guard, Alex Shiekman’s steampunk samurai western Robotika, and A. David Lewis and Marv Mann’s retelling of the Book of Exodus, The Lone and Level Sands.
 
Archaia Studios Press began moving into branded entertainment with a line of graphic novels devoted to Jim Henson properties, and the manga adaptation Cyborg 009 . They then started moving their properties into film and gaming, all of which led to Archaia Studios Press becoming Archaia Entertainment.
 
Archaia is represented by Matthew Rosen at CAA, and currently has a slew of titles in development. Notable among them: Royden Lepp’s Rust, the story of a mysterious boy with a jetpack who crashes into a farm, is set up at Fox with Aline Brosh McKenna scripting and Joe Cornish attached to direct; Michael McMillian’s magical secret agent story Lucid, a collaboration with Zachary Quinto’s Before the Door Pictures, is set up at Warner Brothers with producer Akiva Goldsman on board.
 
Other Archaia properties that would make great movies or TV shows are: Brian Churilla and Jeremy Sheperd’s The Engineer, about a dimension-hopping organist trying to stop an evil creature from destroying the universe; Alex Alice’s epic graphic novel Siegfried, a retelling of the Siegfried story from Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung; Jocamon and Matz’ Cyclops, about a future world where war has been merged with reality TV; and Victor Quinaz's Mr. Murder Is Dead (another Before the Door collaboration) a comic within a comic about a hard-boiled detective in the vein of Dick Tracy hunting down his arch-nemesis.
 
With over 50 titles and counting Archaia is a perfect spot to look for new properties.

For more information: http://www.archaia.com/

For an interview with Mark Smylie

Previous Hot Property: IDW Publishing