Last Sunday the 26th of May, Quiet Hell Comics attended the Limerick Comic Mart that was held in the Absolute Hotel in Limerick City. Organized by Ollie Liddy who was selling their himself, a number of Comic creators around Ireland as well as Comic Vendors joined him for its first ever Comic Mart.

As someone who has being at a few of these events selling our book ‘The Man with No Libido’ we by now have enough experience to know from a retailers’ perspective what makes a good comic convention and what doesn’t. This was one of the better ones with a nice atmosphere and good foot traffic all day long coming into the hall.  Ollie himself was a great host, being very welcoming and making sure that if a person’s table wasn’t getting much exposure or if there was a lull of people that no one was getting disheartened as well as making introductions to the various folks that were there. I myself got to meet the lads at Abandoned Comics as well as the folks from Celtic Clan and Aidan Courtney of Comicí Gael who also attended. We at Quiet Hell made several good contacts along with getting help and information which will be a big benefit for us when we release out new book later this year.

Going to a first year convention is always a gamble as it is not established and you don’t know how well it will be attended, planned or how much it has being advertised.  Thankfully this event was well advertised and foot fall as I said was quite good. The Absolute Hotel isn’t in the City Centre which meant that people actually had to make an effort to come to the place. So in that respect it was quite pleasing seeing the amount of people wandering in and taking a look around.  Most of the vendors I talked to seemed quite happy as there was a nice relaxed atmosphere and people with a genuine interest in Irish Comics. For a first year this was a very encouraging event and with another event tentatively scheduled for November when the students will be residence there is a good chance of this growing to be a yearly event.

With only real two comic conventions in Ireland that consecutively bring in the crowds it is heartening to see an event take place in Southern Ireland which has the potential to get bigger as the years go by.  Hopefully I’ll see you guys there next time!

Jason Browne (Quiet Hell Comics)

Find Limerick Comic Mart on facebook here

Find Quiet Hell Comics on facebook here