Trailers for The Monkey-Head Complaint and Enter Out, which are available to buy at the Blackshapes Shop.

This new version of Absence is the business; certainly more accessible than the original, if, inevitably, less personal and singular - readers won't quite inhabit Andy Luke's world to the same degree as with the original. The fine-tuned cartooning of Stephen Downey is lovely, though - the resultant loss in intimacy but gain in clarity and polish is a worthwhile compromise to reach a wider audience with a valuable message. (Though it remains striking, the one sequence I definitely prefer in the original is the oblique quality of the helmeted drift into seizure, which possesses slightly blunted edge in Downey's depiction.)

Video promo for Mortal Tedium, which is available to buy at the Blackshapes shop.

:: The Digital TRIPWIRE magazine is available to download for FREE: http://www.tripwire-magazine.com/

TRIPWIRE 0.01 is packed with all sorts of articles like a feature on Marvel’s upcoming Thor film (as you will see from the cover) as well as a look at legendary Golden Age artist LB Cole and an examination of Britain’s own 2000AD. We also have interviews with BOOM!’s Marketing Director Chip Mosher and nerd rock band Kirby Krackle, and take a look at Source Code as well. And of course there are some original strips in the back and a re-run of BOOM’s excellent Hellraiser prelude.

Meanwhile in Belfast,

Comics Creators Pub Meet at the Cloth Ear this Thursday.

AND

¿@#!*$

The event features live workshops and performances by Malcy and Pretty Circus collective. There's a comics zine fair. There's also free comics in the form of a new work about epilepsy by myself and Stephen Downey, and the accompanying ¿@#!*$ free-sheet which is already making the rounds. It includes works by Doug Noble, Rachel House, Miguel Martin, Stephen Millar and others.

Catalyst Arts are based at 5 College Ct, Belfast, County Antrim BT1 6BS : opposite Bradbury Graphics, behind Kellys Eye Bingo Hall.

Paddy Brown blogs about the three week event in more detail on the Belfast Comics Blogspot.

Newsbites!:

:: The first KAPOW comic con is this weekend.

:: I have reviewed People I Know Twelve and deemed it worthy.

:: Sean Azzopardi continues to post sketchbook entries. Black Leather looks ace!

:: 27th-29th May sees two different comic events in London - The big London MCM Expo, and the International Alternative Press Festival kicks off (running through 13th June 2011)