The Alchemist's Head, a bookshop specialising in occult and science fiction, was the first shop in Ireland to sell a wide variety of comics. Opened in 1976, it was based in the Temple Bar area of Dublin - long before the area was trendy - for more than 15 years. The first all-comic shop to open was Forbidden Planet on Dawson Street, Dublin, and more recently, Sub City on Exchequer Street. There are also two specialist comic shops in Galway and one in Cork.

The newest comic shop around is Millions of Images. Also located in Temple Bar, over the Regent barber shop, it is owned by William Webster. "I specialise in creator-run comics, no superheroes. This is a no-capes-allowed shop!"

He caters for collectors. "Comic collectors are either into a particular comic or a particular character, so you have to have each issue of a series. The best-seller here is Eightball, created by Daniel Clowes, a comic full of quirky paranoia. "The comics mostly appeal to people in their mid-teens to late 20s, but I'd also get men in their 50s who've been collecting since they were kids."

One of Daniel Clowe's `quirky paranoid' images from the popular, as collected in Lout Rampage (Fantagraphics Books, 1991).