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The Black Panel Diaries

In 2008 I assigned myself to fledging London Underground Comics at Camden Market. I'd just taken to weekly writing for Comics Village. The column was Sheridan Cottage, and it felt like the best comics journalism. In that same spirit, this space once a month I'm chronicling similar: selling homemade comics at a free public market. The Black Box is a club venue in Belfast's Cathedral Arts Quarter. It's attached coffee shop is renowned for its finest pizza, says Paddy. Over the following months it wil play host to some of the Belfast Nashville festival, The Vagina Monologues, and gigs by The Fairport Convention, Luka Bloom, and PJ Gallagher. On Sunday mornings it also seems to double as a church social function. Weird. No time for either, I'm trying to sell my grandmother for an electric blanket and a packet of cigs.

The Black Box gives us chairs and space for a donation. It seems their interest is represented in genuine altruistic community promotion. When the Good Friday agreement spun and arranged post-war Ulster back in '95, a 'Peace Dividend' saw city investment grow and a £1 billion regeneration of the Laganside. The Black Box is in this area that's steeped with literary history. We're selling comics from thirty-ish creators across Ireland. There's a full list on the blogspot I set up.

Ok, time for a smoke.

It's a cold Sunday at 1pm and my trade route in the new brick streets is blocked by a speaker and a group of student types. He's talking of how three decades of Troubles created an attitude were no-one goes inside or even near the thriving Arts Quarter that they pushed so much money into. Proving his labelling theory, he leads them away.