Comic books, figurines, t-shirts, collectibles and every other kind of merchandise related to the comic world that you can imagine line the walls of the only dedicated comic and loot store in the West of Ireland, Sub-City Comics.
Taking the time away from unboxing new stock, the owner of Sub-City Brian Curley spoke with SIN about his existence among comic books. Starting in his childhood in Dublin where he swapped his Christmas annuals for comics books; “myself and my brother we had a really good collection and one summer, my brother started to check what we had and we realised that we had really good, really rare comics. So then we set up a market stall in Dublin, Grafton Street Flea Market, and we built from there. We opened up our first shop in 1994.”
Continuing to his latest expansion of the Galway branch of his comic book store, Brian has managed to turn his passion into a booming career.
When asked if it bothers him how certain people might perceive the comic book world and its connections to Sheldon in the series ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and the Comic Book Guy from ‘The Simpsons’, Brian said; “that’s what we do, that’s what we are into, don’t care if some scruff walks past you “oi nerd”, you know it’s not a big deal. I just ask them to spell it, and they usually keep walking on. If anything, it adds a bit of fun to it. You don’t take it too seriously.”
This mindset has led Brian to an extremely successful business operation in Galway City spanning over 25 years. With the expansion of the Sub-City store, they have moved from their smaller space in the downstairs area in Corbett Court Shopping Centre to two doors down, creating the space to bring in more and more comic books and loot; “it’s great to have a new store, with all of this space. I can guarantee you within 6 months we will have it full again. We just constantly re-order and get new stock in, and restocks and all that.”
With this new store comes new possibilities and Sub-City are looking out for ways they can bring the comic community in Galway together; “we are going to start doing events, but we have to get Christmas out of the way. We ran the first comic conventions in Dublin, you know, before they were cool. We’d love to get back to doing something like that. You get lots of people coming in here that would literally only meet here, or at a Comic Con. So it’s always good to have.”
If you’re looking to get into comic books and everything that comes with it, Sub-City is the best place to go. Brian has gathered a team of staff that have all the knowledge to lead you down the path to the comic world that suits you the most; “We have it, whatever you’re into. When someone comes in and they say ‘I want to start’, then we ask what TV shows do they watch and we figure it out from there. There is loads of stuff.”
Brian had just a few parting words for students in Galway from the Sub-City community, and those were to; “Just call in and have a look, I’m sure they’d like it.”
