The weekend of the 24th and 25th of November saw the arrival of Dublin’s first comic convention in approximately 11 years, conceived and run by local comic shop owner John Hendrick with the aim to see if Ireland had the audience for a regular comic event.
Friday night saw a charity pub quiz held in the upstairs area of one of the numerous bars situated in Dublin city centre. The entrance fee was 10 Euros per person and the full tables at least guaranteed lots of cash for charity. Teams were to consist of four people, a couple of teams even consisting of some of the convention’s guests, such as the cunningly titled Team Wisdom made up of Paul Cornell, his wife and FractalMatter staff. Transformers artist and local boy Nick Roche secured his team, whilst a refreshing sight was the number of females present, one team comprised entirely of women.
The quiz was lead by the charismatic John Hendrick himself, despite a string of taunts and insults – all carried out in the friendliest possible way. The mixture of general knowledge and comic questions soon separated those taking the whole thing seriously from those enjoying the local beverages and a number of teams bunched up for top spot. Amidst the scratching of heads and chewing of pens the now legendary Millarworld Mr. T vest made the rounds, engulfing its victims in an armless display of orange wool. The vest’s owner Steven “Wesman” Crowther once again showed he is the king of bling with a charming “S” shield gold necklace and Superman faux-diamond encrusted belt/cigarette ensemble, and also a replica Thor hammer and Viking helmet that found itself adorning many a person including Adi Granov, Paul Cornell and Liam Sharp, amongst others.
Once the dust had settled, FractalMatter writer Russell Hillman and his comrades emerged victorious in the pub quiz, swiping a load of great prizes. Close behind was Team Wisdom, managing to push my own Casino Royale With Cheese into a respectable third place. Everyone had a great time, and we headed into the Dublin night eager to see what the next day would bring.
It brought a little bit of chaos. As no one had run a convention in Dublin for over a decade, there were always going to be teething problems, which is why just deciding to have the convention as a one-day event was very sensible. Running out of the music centre in Temple Bar gave the event an excellent centrally placed venue that guaranteed lots of passing people who might be tempted inside and the proximity of three comic shops also helped. The doors were meant to open at 9am, but upon arriving to help at 8am it was apparent that that may be pushing things. A lack of venue staff to help out meant stage lights couldn’t be operated and the general set-up of tables and dealers simply took longer than expected.
Opening an hour or so late didn’t seem to bother any of the crowd that had gathered outside, nor did the unfortunate non-appearance of guests Bryan Hitch and Trevor Hairsine, mainly due to the fact that Mark Millar was in attendance. Utilising the stage in the main hall as a signing area, it soon became apparent that the vast majority of people had turned out to get the Civil War writer’s signature. With a queue stretching out of the centre, a new location away from the other guests had to be found. Witnessing Millar sat in front of the toilets with a queue of people waiting to be seen goes down as one of the more surreal moments of the weekend, but nothing could perturb the Scottish scribe and he happily signed away, though he missed out on an opportunity to make some money by offering toiletry products to those emerging from the restrooms.
The main floor itself was full of the usual comic dealers and purveyors of indie books and artwork. An impressive number of tables were squeezed in and remained busy throughout the day. Indeed the number of people coming into the convention stayed at a fairly consistent rate. The only issue then became trying to get as many people as possible chance to get something signed by the guests. Enforcing a strict 2 book per person limit was the only fair and sensible way of achieving this, helped along by the assistants out on the floor, the queues kept moving.
Lunch consisted of around 35 people descending on a local eaterie, much to their staff’s horror. The sheer numbers meaning we had to wait a while for our food to arrive, and kept the guests away longer than was expected due largely to the ritual sacrifice required for Mark Millar’s meal.
As mentioned earlier, having a one day event really allowed the organisers to try and see what worked and what didn’t. Part of this was to not try and do too much in their first outing and so timetabled events during the day consisted of one question and answer session in the afternoon with a panel consisting of Millar, Cornell, Sharp, Granov and Roche. Under the direction of compere John Hendrick, the panel answered a series of questions that had been taken from the audience earlier in the day, and was a real highlight of the day. The sheer enthusiasm of Paul Cornell and his joy at managing to sell all the copies of Wisdom #1 he brought with him was matched by Nick Roche announcing he had fulfilled all his dreams by being able to draw Transformers; to the sheer wit of Mark Millar and his tall tales and teasing of future projects – it was a raucous hour of entertainment that somehow didn’t end with Mr. Hendrick being beaten up by Liam Sharp.
The bar area for many is where all real conventions take place, and the small bar at Dublin was no exception with a collection of Millarworlders holding court and scaring the locals. Also found there were the better halves of some of the guests, and a small gaming area where demonstrations could be found provided people could get past Thor hammer-wielding antics of the Millarworld set.
Come closing time and it was becoming apparent that the whole thing had gone rather well, but with a gig on that night in the same venue the whole thing had to be emptied in less than an hour to make way for a Depeche Mode tribute band or all things. Boxes were packed and tables folded away in double quick time – mainly to escape before a dubious looking band started their sound-check, but also so everyone could retire to the pub. Dublin bore witness to an event rarer than an eclipse when Mark Millar managed to find his wallet and bought some of us a drink. For the lucky few dinner awaited in a nearby restaurant, even though we had to wait well over an hour to get let in due to some seat allocation issues. As Saturday became Sunday, conversation turned to all manner of things, but the real show stopper came with local resident and Fractalmatter reviewer Mark Hall’s highly detailed zombie escape plan which managed to both scare and astound the guests with its intricacies.
So, the first (hopefully) annual Dublin Con went off without a Hitch, so to speak, and has given the organisers some valuable lessons for the next one, such as don’t try and open your doors at 9am – all the fanboys are still tucked up in bed. Having Millar as a guest was an obvious draw, but hopefully a large number of people would have come anyway, and if next year has similar guests it would seem a larger venue will be needed. A few teething problems aside, this was a great convention and a lot of that goes down to the excellent friendly attitude of the organisers and people of Dublin. See you all next year! (17th & 18th November 2007)
Pictures provided by James Dodsworth’s camera shot by Mark Hall & Sabrina Peyton)
James Dodsworth - Born and raised in Yorkshire, residing in London since 2000, James has a Law Degree and works for the Anti-Financial Crime Office of a International Asset Management Company. He is a writer and editor for FractalMatter.com.
But his main claim to fame is living next to the pub where Shaun of the Dead was conceived.