About

STONEYBATTER

Little Deer Comics is an independent comic book shop specializing in small press comics and creator owned comics. Our shop is located in the former Maureen's Grocery on Manor Place in Stoneybatter beside Slice Cafe.

57 Manor Place
Dublin 7
D07 KC80

We'll be here hopefully for a few years! We would love to buy a retail space though, so if anyone has any leads on retail for sale in Stoneybatter please get in touch! littledeercomics@gmail.com 

ACCESSIBILITY: Unfortunately our shop has a pretty substantial step in and a narrow footpath that doesn't allow for a simple cheap ramp like we had in Inchicore, but we'll keep investigating options and hopefully find a solution. 

LITTLE DEER

Little Deer Comics started as a small press comics market table. Our first event was in 2019 at Pender's Market in Stoneybatter and from there we tabled at The Dublin Comic Arts Festival and other local Dublin markets with the goal of expanding the self published and small press comic book presence in Dublin and hopefully grow the audience as well. 

Since the pandemic started, Little Deer has been an online shop, casually in 2020 and more formally with a SumUp webshop in early 2021 and this current Shopify shop in late 2021.

We ran a pop-up shop in the former Maureen's in Stoneybatter from September 2021-February 2022.

From February to November 2022, we enjoyed a pop-up in Emmet Hall in Inchicore before returning to the former Maureen's in Stoneybatter where we'll be for the foreseeable future! 

Little Deer is run by Matthew Melis, founder and organizer of The Dublin Comic Arts Festival.

Matt is a member of the Stray Lines comic collective.

SMALL PRESS COMICS

Small press comics can be a nebulous term in the comic book world. They can be as small as a photocopied zine and as big as Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. I generally use the term to mean creator-owned, independent comics. They can be handmade, self-published or released by small press publishers.

CREATOR OWNED COMICS

Like "Small Press Comics," "Creator Owned Comics" can also be a tricky term! Generally, in traditional prose, if an author writes a book they retain the rights to the book. In most superhero comics, they are created as "work for hire," and the creators do not own the rights to their own creations. Since one of Little Deer's founding goals is to support artists, we only carry Creator Owned Comics.

There are complications in that some small press publishers, even ones that used to allow creators to retain their rights after publishing are now acting as "IP farms" forcing authors to sign away the rights to any TV shows or films that may arise from their comics. Our system isn't perfect as we stock some publishers that engage in exploitive practices, but we do our best to stock books that the creators own the rights to. 

PRESS

August 5th, 2023 - Irish Examiner - Books Are My Business: Matt Melis of Stoneybatter's Little Deer Comics

January 7th, 2023 - The Irish Times - What's Hot: Little Deer Comics, Gorgeous comic book shop in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7

June 25th, 2022 - The Irish Times - The Con Artists by Luke Healy: sad, silly and occasionally beautiful a nice mention in the second paragraph. 

April 25th, 2022 - RTE - Inside Little Deer - how we opened an independent comic book shop

PAST MARKETS

This archive is from the early days of Little Deer when we were a market stall. These days you can always find Little Deer at The Dublin Comic Arts Festival. 

Little Deer Comics exhibited at these Dublin markets in 2023:

  • March 11th & 12th - Dublin Comic Con


Little Deer Comics exhibited at these Dublin markets in 2020:

    Little Deer Comics exhibited at these Dublin markets in 2019:

    CONTACT

    Please send all enquiries to littledeercomics@gmail.com

    Find Little Deer around the internet @littledeercomics on Instagram and Facebook and @littledeercmx on Twitter